The Last Word
by sss979
Summary: (Book 2 of 19) The CIA wants a word with Hannibal about a mission he pulled off in Vietnam. But they're going to have a hell of a time bringing him in...
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

 **1982**

Something was wrong.

It was the first – and only – thing Hannibal knew as he fought through the layers of darkness in search of coherent thought. Was he asleep? Must be. When had he fallen asleep? That question offered no answer. And where was he, anyway? Memories were slow to return, and all of them foggy.

Cramped and aching from lying in one position for too long, he tried to turn onto his side. No go. Startled, he opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a dirty, water damaged tile ceiling he'd never seen before. An attempt to sit up made him realize he was tied, spread eagle, on the bed.

Aw, hell.

Naked and cold from the blasting air conditioner - not at all necessary in the late fall temperatures - his thoughts were simple. Along with a growing awareness of just how badthis was, he felt both a sense of amusement and indignant frustration. Tugging on the bonds around his wrists, he determined they were cuffs rather than ropes even before he looked at them. She was smart. The amusement was fading.

"Suzanne!" he called loudly, just in case she was still around. He didn't expect an answer, and didn't get one. With a frustrated growl, he pulled himself up as much as he could and studied the ropes around his ankles. That was not good. His chances of getting out of this without help were slim to none, especially considering the screaming pain in his shoulder every time he even thought about moving.

Damn it...

He fell back again, closed his eyes, and breathed deep a few times. No sense getting angry about it. He had bigger and more important things to think about right now than what he was going to do when he got his hands on her. First, he had to figure out how in the hell he was supposed to get his hands out of these cuffs.

Waking up drugged was not a first-time experience for him, but he hated it as much now as ever. The process seemed so much slower and more perplexing than waking from a peaceful sleep. That she had drugged him served as the only logical explanation for the ringing in his ears and the fog in his head. He remembered vague details as the confusion slowly cleared and turned to glance at the clock. The glowing red digits read 6:02. Judging by the light coming through the shaded window, it was six in the evening, not in the morning. Which meant he'd either been here for over twenty-four hours – he wasn't hungry enough for that to be the case – or less than two.

She'd gone for backup, and apparently a phone call hadn't sufficed. If she'd been smart, she would've had them on standby when she got the brilliant idea to knock him out. No way she could've possibly expected to carry him out of here on her own. But two hours was a hell of a long time; had she gone three counties over to get her help? Of course, it was rush hour. And it wasn't like he was going anywhere; she didn't need to hurry on his account.

The more he thought about his current predicament, the worse it looked. How long would it take her to get back? He considered it as he pulled on the cuffs, testing to see how much room he had to maneuver. The bed was only a double and they had some give. Hell of a lot of good it was going to do him when he hadn't the slightest idea where the key was. She'd probably taken it with her; she wasn't a complete idiot. He had nothing within his grasp to pick the lock with and, even if he had, twisting his hand around enough to do it would've been impossible. The cuffs weren't going to break off the thick post of the headboard and his chances of breaking the bed itself were equally slim.

He glanced at the clock again, anxiously. Unwelcome guests of the law enforcement variety would funnel through that door any moment now. He didn't even want to think about that. He certainly wasn't in any position to defend himself.

"Damn it, Suzy," he muttered under his breath. "You're trying my patience."

How the hell was he supposed to get out of here?


	2. Chapter One

**CHAPTER ONE**

 **1967**

Standing in the doorway of General Ross Westman's office, Hannibal was wearing clean fatigues for the first time in weeks. It simply wouldn't do to show up for a meeting with the most powerful man on this side of the Vietnam War - barring the President himself, of course - in bloody and/or mud-stained clothes.

"General," he greeted, startling the senior officer in spite of the fact he'd been announced long before he was allowed to approach.

"Ah, there you are," the tall, slightly-greying man greeted, not rising from his desk. Then, more conversationally, he continued with an inviting wave. "I hear you lost another team, John."

A slight smirk crossed Hannibal's face as he stepped into the room, casting a quick glance around the paint-peeled walls and the cheap, practical furniture. "In this line of work, 'lost' tends to imply 'dead'," he pointed out. "And they're very much alive."

Westman chuckled before replying with a thick Texan drawl. "So they are. Close the door, will you?"

Removing the signature green beret, Hannibal shut the door behind him and took a few steps toward the desk. Westman turned in his chair to reach into a metal drawer behind him. Keeping a watchful eye on the general - purely out of habit, not distrust - Hannibal saw him withdraw a bottle and two glasses, then pour amber-colored alcohol.

"So what was it this time, Colonel?" Westman asked with a smile, handing one of the glasses over.

Hannibal took the drink - it smelled like whiskey - and sat down as Westman leaned back against the desk. "What do you mean?" he asked innocently.

Westman sipped from his glass and, with a smile, pointed a long finger at Hannibal before continuing. "Do you know that you are the only man I have ever met who can't hold on to a recon unit?" The thought seemed to amuse him thoroughly. "Every time you go out, you come back and everyone quits. Hell, that one guy held on for three drops - what was his name?"

It wasn't hard for Hannibal to remember the name his superior was searching for. The man had been so determined to succeed, to conquer the challenge of being the first to outlast all the men who'd come and go before him, that he'd sworn he would never request a transfer from Hannibal's unit even if it killed him. Unfortunately, the two of them had clashed from word one and after one particularly intense conflict of strategy very nearly did cost his life, the kid ran hell bent for leather back to Saigon without so much as a farewell.

"Sergeant Adams," Hannibal offered lightly, smiling at the fond memories.

"That's the one! Russell Adams," Westman nodded. "He still holds the goddamn record. Three drops with you. Then he was so bleedin' scared, he dropped right outta SOG!"

Hannibal sipped his drink, noting it was a bit thinner and stung a bit more than the last batch. Unless he'd recently reformed, Westman made this stuff in a little portable still right here in Vietnam. Inspecting the gold tinge in the glass when held up to the light with far more interest than he considered the fate of Sergeant Adams, Hannibal answered lightly, "I think you can safely blame Charlie for that, sir. I wasn't the one shooting at him."

A deep, full laugh answered him before Westman spoke again. "No, you were the one leading him into an ambush!"

With a shrug, Hannibal lowered his glass again. "That was the assignment." He reconsidered quickly. "At least, that was the easiest way to accomplish the assignment. And might I point out, he was still alive to quit, Sir."

"Don't you 'sir' me; I ain't pleased with you." But he was smiling even as he said it.

Hannibal returned the grin, gaze fixed on the older man as he took another drink. "Well, if you'd brought me here for a reprimand, I trust you wouldn't have poured me a drink first," he noted. "Sir."

"Alright, smartass," Westman chuckled, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together loosely. "Where am I supposed to put you, huh? You're settin' yourself up for a desk job in the office right next door and I know you won't like that."

All lighthearted humor failed as Hannibal considered that thought, and the smile fell from his face. Although he knew for a fact what he did was more valuable than Westman wanted him to think, it wasn't an idle threat. He'd been sent all over South Vietnam, and over the border any number of times, responding to or dealing with A-teams in trouble. Sometimes, all they needed was reinforcements - a Mike Force or Hatchet Force. But sometimes they needed _real_ help - strategy and experienced command. Occasionally, what they needed was a Mike Force and for whatever reason, they couldn't have one. Those were the situations that made strategy particularly tricky. The cries for help kept him busy twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

"Well, I've already given you my suggestion," he offered, reclining and putting one foot on his opposite knee.

Westman heaved a deep, heartfelt sigh. "John, you can't keep a team for five days in the field," he pointed out. "And you expect you're gonna find a team that'll stick with you permanently?"

"If you let me pick them," Hannibal nodded, completely serious and radiating confidence, "then yes."

"I've put you with the wildest, most war-crazed sons of bitches we got and even they tell me you're out of your mind."

Chuckling as much at the seriousness of the general's tone as the words themselves, Hannibal found himself smiling again. "Are you trying to tell me I'm war-crazed, General?"

Westman shook his head with a sigh. "John, I don't know what you are," he admitted. "But 'lucky' is real high up there on the list and 'cautious' don't even make an appearance."

"I'm very cautious in the field," Hannibal corrected, slightly indignant. "I've gained more intelligence and done more damage to Charlie than most of those teams out there and with fewer lost Americans. That takes a great deal of caution."

"Oh, I'm not criticizing your skills," Westman answered quickly. "I know you're damn good. One of the finest, in fact. But you're going to bleed this army dry of soldiers who are willing to work with you."

Shrugging to demonstrate his loss of interest in the frankly redundant chastisement, Hannibal cut his gaze to the open window and wished for a breeze to clear out the air in the stifling hot room.

"You take too many risks, Hannibal," the general continued. "And most of these boys want to go home someday."

The colonel lowered his head a fraction, noting the use of his nickname. Ross Westman had known him for so long - both formally and informally - he knew precisely how to get his attention. The reference to the origin and nature of his reputation did not go unnoticed.

"If they had any high hopes of returning home, Ross -" He glanced up and met the older man's stare. "- they never should've reported to CCN."

Westman watched him for a long moment, the smile long gone now. A new shadow passed over his expression, and Hannibal sat up straighter as he realized there was something else, a bigger reason why he'd been called here.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, braced for anything. Hannibal had no family back home whose death announcement might be forthcoming and no strong ties to any particular soldiers here. If he'd done something significantly detrimental to his own or Westman's career, he wouldn't have been greeted with laughter and a glass of whiskey. That meant it was either a difficult request or, less likely, a personal matter on Westman's part he had no one else to tell.

It took a long, uneasy moment for Westman to reply. "I have a job for you," he finally said, answering Hannibal's curiosity without wasting words.

Noting the strange intensity in the general's eyes, Hannibal frowned. "What kind of job?" he replied. Even as he said it, the word tasted bitter on his tongue. A "job" was different from an "assignment". A "job" was a problem that needed fixing - usually because of somebody's screw-up - and he was not routinely employed by General Westman for "jobs". The general did not normally create such problems. He had a feeling he already knew where this was going.

Focusing his attention on his drink for a moment, Westman took a bigger gulp than he probably should have, and winced as it burned in his throat. "It's Agency work, John," he finally admitted, reluctantly. "With all of your antics, you have managed to attract some attention."

Hannibal frowned deeply, and took a too-long sip of his own drink before nodding. "Alright," he acknowledged uncomfortably, keeping his answer as noncommittal as possible. "I suppose it had to happen sooner or later."

"They're not looking for a permanent arrangement, if that's what you're worried about," Westman continued, sensing his uneasiness. A knowing grin broke out over the general's face before he finished, "Frankly, I don't think they want the headache."

Relaxing again, Hannibal smiled back. "Aw, general, I'm touched."

"It's one mission," Westman continued in a brighter tone, rising from the desk. "I haven't read the entire briefing - though, knowing the Agency, they probably didn't give me the entire briefing anyway - but it seems fairly straight forward."

"What is it?" Hannibal asked, mildly curious. The Agency, as such, was still in infancy stages. Sure, the government had been employing its citizens for espionage since at least WWII and probably long before then. But only recently was the existence of a "Central Intelligence Agency" whispered about by soldiers in bars and camps. And only in the past few months had their organizational structure reached a stage of development where they were able to interact with and make requests of the military. Though still a civilian operation, the need for cooperation between the two was obvious in a war zone.

Remaining seated, Hannibal watched the general walk to the door without another word. Westman spent a moment conversing with his secretary before ushering in a dark-haired man not long in his twenties. He wasn't military - at least, he wasn't dressed like it - and looked to be of mixed race. Chinese, perhaps? Certainly not Vietnamese. Wearing a neatly pressed, button down shirt and pleated slacks, he looked as though he'd just stepped out of a board room meeting. Instantly wary but careful not to show it, Hannibal stood and turned to face him.

"Colonel Smith, this is Sam Grifton," Westman introduced as the stranger extended a hand. Though his expression remained neutral, a general feeling of cool, detached superiority radiated from him. "He'll be your liaison with the Agency and your point of contact in the field."

"In the field?" Hannibal repeated with brows raised. He cast a brief look at Westman, then a long, scrutinizing gaze up and down the man's lanky frame.

"I'll be accompanying you and your team to the FOB," Grifton clarified. A plastic, illegitimate smile accompanied the rest of his emotionless words. "Don't let the suit fool you. I am more than capable of handling myself outside the wire."

Hannibal almost laughed. Clearly, rumors of his style in the field had been underwhelming if this civilian thought he could keep up. Glancing at Westman, Hannibal raised a brow. "You didn't tell me he had a sense of humor."

Maintaining all propriety and professionalism in the face of the stranger, Westman cleared his throat. "Your team is being pulled from the 5th," he reassured, acknowledging Hannibal's concern if not easing it.

"Almost entirely," Grifton corrected. "One is from the 3rd and one infantry. The latter, we're hoping to utilize on a more regular basis, so this is sort of a trial run for him."

Amused, Hannibal nodded as if this all made perfect sense and was entirely reasonable.

"We've assembled a team we think will compliment you on this assignment," Grifton declared with authority. "You and I will meet them at the FOB at 0600 tomorrow morning. If all goes well, you should be able to return to Saigon the following day."

Hannibal stared. Then he exchanged long glances with Westman, and stared some more at the neatly groomed stranger who seemed not to mind the silence in the least. Finally clearing his throat, Hannibal reached into his shirt pocket for the stub of a cigar and his pants pocket for a lighter.

"Mr. Grifton," he began patiently, holding the cigar between his teeth, "I don't know what you've been told about me -"

"General Westman says you're the best," Grifton interrupted. "I trust his faith in you is not misplaced."

Hannibal paused, chuckled, and lit his cigar before passing a smile to Westman in appreciation of the compliment. "Be that as it may," he replied carefully, "I'm not a miracle worker."

"What do you mean?" Grifton asked, blinking in confusion.

Casting another lengthy look at the general as if to say, "Where the hell did you pick this moron up?", Hannibal dropped his Zippo back into the pocket of his fatigues. "You can't just snap your fingers and put together a team of strangers, then send them out into the field and expect everything to go well," Hannibal clarified with as much patience as he could spare.

"They're all men from Fifth Special Forces," Grifton replied dismissively. "Hardly strangers."

Hannibal puffed on his cigar, searching for a way to adequately communicate his disbelief at the naivete this man was displaying.

"Let me put it this way," he clarified. "I am not taking a team I haven't proved on the ground for an Agency assignment."

Clearly not expecting this, Grifton blinked in frank shock before giving an arrogant snort of laughter. "You'll do as you're damn well told," the man sneered, casting his own disbelieving look in Westman's direction. "That is how the army works, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're not my commanding officer," Hannibal pointed out.

"No," Westman agreed, drawing Hannibal's gaze again. "I am."

Standing straighter, the colonel tipped his head, curious to see if Westman planned to pull rank. He still hadn't been given any classified information that bound him to the mission. There was no reason why he couldn't walk right now.

Westman sighed deeply as he walked to the desk and poured another glass of whiskey. "Trouble is, Colonel, whether you take six months to prove a team of seasoned veterans or you grab a couple boys off the plane with no combat experience between them, the result is always the same."

"That's not a bad thing," Grifton added lightly. "At least, not as far as we're concerned. You can take anyone out into a combat situation under any conditions and they almost always come back alive and hating you." He paused for a smile. "We can certainly work with that."

Jaw tight, Hannibal remained silent and stared back at his commanding officer as Westman capped the bottle and put it away. "Are you ordering me to accept this... recruitment offer?" he demanded, seeking clarification.

"We're not 'recruiting'," Grifton interjected, spitting the word with obvious disgust. "Our sources have alerted us to a matter that requires intervention. The Army has the manpower, trained to provide such intervention. But there is to be no employment, implied or otherwise, between us and any soldier."

"If I get caught, you'll deny all knowledge of me or what I'm doing," Hannibal translated, putting the carefully worded explanation into plain English. "But that doesn't worry me, and it's not what I'm asking."

Fixing his stare once again at Westman, Hannibal waited for an answer from the only man in the room with the ability to make this happen. After a brief pause, Westman took another drink and shook his head. "I'm not ordering you," he clarified. "But you need to understand something. You're a colonel, John. I can't stick you out in an A-camp to play house or the NVA would send every goddamn soldier they have to get you. Frankly, you shouldn't be out in the field at all."

"We've had this conversation," Hannibal reminded him with an edge in his purposefully respectful tone.

Without acknowledgment, the general went on. "Sending you out to problem areas as an advisor - which is, by the way, the only way I can get away with sending you out of Saigon at all - can't happen if the people you're advising don't want you to come back because they're all afraid to work with you."

Westman sat down again, but kept Hannibal fixed in his piercing stare. Standing very still, Hannibal's eyes darted from Westman to Grifton and back again. He didn't like where this was heading.

"All of this," Westman continued, "is quite besides the point that you can't hold onto a team. We're coming to the end of the road, John. I can't use you."

"Then give me a permanent team," he said firmly, gritting his teeth at the implied ultimatum. "I'll be a hell of a lot more use to you if I can -"

"What do you think I been trying to do?" Westman challenged, leaning forward.

"Let _me_ find them," Hannibal clarified, irritated by the number of times and ways he had to say this.

Grifton cleared his throat, reintroducing himself into the conversation. "The team we are placing under your command is specially selected for their ability to handle stressful situations."

"Stressful situations?" Hannibal almost laughed.

Grifton was not amused. "They're _good_ soldiers," he said firmly.

"And you would know," Hannibal challenged, irritated by the man's arrogance.

"I selected them myself," Grifton answered proudly, oblivious to the sarcasm.

Very suddenly, Hannibal grabbed the pistol holstered at his side and leveled it at the startled man. With wide eyes, the man took a step back, unable to tear his terrified stare from the weapon. Behind him, Westman rose and took a few cautious steps forward with an anxious, "John?"

Hannibal lowered and holstered the weapon again as if he hadn't just breached every article of protocol in the book, and turned to Westman. "I need men who possess one of two qualities - preferably both." With a disgusted glare, he looked back at Grifton. "You can't be afraid to die. And you have to know that I would never pull the trigger. The first is a rare trait, the second takes time. But without it, there's an awful lot left to blind luck out there. So maybe you want to reconsider how lucky you feel before you saddle me with this 'specially selected' team and send me out to do your dirty work."

Turning back to the chair where he'd been seated only moments before, Hannibal grabbed his beret from the edge of the desk and held the cigar between his teeth as he put it on. The silence lingered, even as he brushed past Grifton without so much as a lingering glance.

"Find yourself another pawn," he muttered. "You and I wouldn't get along very well."

 **1982**

The woman who'd been watching Hannibal for the past two hours was strikingly noticeable and not half as subtle as she probably thought she was. Mid- to late twenties, perhaps, professionally dressed with one hand permanently fixed on her purse and a cigarette she didn't actually smoke usually in the other. Hannibal didn't know who she was - she'd never been on the set before - but the way her eyes never seemed to leave him made one hell of an impression. More likely than not, it meant she was a threat. But she was certainly an interesting - and attractive - one.

The longer she stood there, watching his superb acting skills under the direction of a high strung and generally disagreeable director, the more he expected to be interrupted by MP cars plowing toward him at full speed. But they never came. By the time the final "cut!" was called and he'd gotten the top half of the massive, bulky costume off, he was at least fifty percent sure she wasn't a threat. At least, not a real threat. Worst case scenario, she had a gun in that purse. It would make sense of why she never took her hand away from it.

She smiled with an unexpectedly casual familiarity as she briefly locked stares with Hannibal, then turned her attention to the approaching director. Full of confidence, she chatted him up, casting glances and subtle gestures to suggest they were talking about the star monster of the movie. Hmm... Maybe he was only forty-five percent sure of her "non-threat" status.

Not five minutes after he'd disappeared into the trailer to change, he heard a firm knock on the door. MPs didn't knock, limiting the possibilities to either someone from the shoot or Ms. Attractive-and-Inquisitive. With a cigar between his teeth, he checked to make sure his weapon was out of sight before calling, "Who is it?"

"Mr. Smith?" The female voice had a flirty tone to it. So did her smile, as he pulled the curtain aside to peer out, although she wasn't looking up at him. "I'm a friend of the director's. I was hoping I could get an audience with you when you have a moment."

An audience? A grin crossed his face. He still didn't have the slightest clue what she wanted but at least she had style. Personally, he wanted to shower and change - spending the day baking inside a giant latex lizard suit under the California sun did bad things to a person - but his insatiable curiosity won easily. Besides, in a one-on-one situation, even in half a lizard suit, he was more than capable of holding his own. And it would be fun to watch her reaction to him in his current state of half-dress.

Still grinning and clenching his cigar in his teeth, he opened the door and leaned causally against the frame, arms crossed as he gave her a quick look up and down. There were no tell-tale, gun-shaped bulges under the knee-length, brown leather jacket. And she had exceptionally nice legs in jeans just tight enough to show her form, but not clingy enough to make her look cheap and easy. Maybe Lynch was getting better at picking out his decoys.

Removing the cigar, he smiled at her. "I think I have a moment or two to grant you an audience, Miss...?"

"Alvine." She held out a business card between her fingers. "Rachel Alvine."

She hesitated a beat, giving him a chance to look at the card. Made of heavy stock, it was plain and boring, just like a hundred other agents' cards. Luckily, she was anything but plain, especially up close. The curl in her dark hair looked natural and well-kept, and her light chocolate skin-tone gave away her mixed race. It made her something of a peculiarity, given her age. Though nowhere near as old as he was, she'd still been born during a time when interracial dating was taboo.

"Please, come in," he invited, stepping back and gesturing her inside.

"Actually, I'd rather talk out here, if that's alright." The refusal was professional and polite, but the way she eyed him up and down, smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, was quite the opposite. "You understand."

He smiled in return. Either she needed to stay in sight of her backup or she was simply smart enough not to risk coming inside a confined trailer with an unknown man. It raised his opinion of her a bit and made the blatant flirting even more amusing. If she wasn't comfortable coming in, it was strictly an MO. She knew what she had and she knew how to use it. That was... refreshing.

"I understand you recently fired your agent," she said lightly. "I was wondering if you were perhaps looking for a replacement."

Instantly, he knew the explanation was a ruse, if not altogether false. Maybe it was just the way she looked at him - flirty and yet cautious. The "cautious" part didn't fit; an agent on the prowl in Hollywood would swim with the sharks while wearing a steak bikini. Caution never entered into the equation.

Taking a puff on his cigar, Hannibal smiled. "My agent and I didn't quite see eye to eye." His tone took a slightly more serious quality and he waved his cigar toward the head of his costume, sitting on the table next to his trailer. "Like how the Aquamaniac has the heart and soul of a poet, wrapped in the shell of a monster. It's really a metaphor for post-industrial society."

She laughed lightly, but he kept a straight face. "I see." She smiled up at him and leaned on the door frame. "I'm not sure I entirely grasp that. But perhaps you could explain it to me over coffee. And we could discuss where your -" Her eyes raked him again. "- interests lie."

Hannibal smiled to himself. Laughter, interest, and blatant appraisal - agent or plant, her response was just right. And she still hadn't given him anything on which to base his assessment of her.

"I would love to plumb the depths of the misunderstood, tragic figure of the Aquamaniac with you, Miss Alvine." The cigar made its way back to his mouth. "But I do have some prior commitments."

"My schedule is open," she offered. "Just name the time and place."

"How about Thursday, at the Delta Café. Say noon?" He gave her another more complete appraisal, allowing his eyes to linger just a fraction of a second more than needed on her frankly stunning pins. He was, after all, just returning the favor. Smiling more broadly, he checked to see if there was any reaction to the ogling as he waited for an answer.

She smiled confidently, setting her shoulders back and her chin slightly up. If his scrutiny made her the least bit uncomfortable, she didn't show it. In fact, her pose might have almost been considered preening. "Thursday sounds great," she agreed. "Pleasure meeting you, Mr. Smith."

She extended a hand and shook firmly with him before turning and walking away with a determined stride. He noticed a bit of swivel to her hips that had been absent before and smiled. It would be a shame to let her efforts go to waste. "Miss Alvine?"

She turned and looked back, over her shoulder, brows raised. "Yes?" she asked innocently.

With his best knowing grin, he answered confidently. "It's been a pleasure to watch you work."

This time when she turned away, smiling again, he let her go. He wasn't a fool; it smelled like a trap. But it was a damn good-looking one. If Lynch was behind this, he'd certainly learned a thing or two about how to grab his attention.

 **1967**

Hannibal didn't get far into his retreat from Westman's office. In fact, he was only halfway down the hall when the general's secretary came running, calling for him to come back. Drawing in a deep, calming breath, he dropped his head and composed himself fully before turning and heading back with fresh resolve. Thankfully, the Agency representative had gone, apparently the opposite way down the long hallway outside.

"What in the name of God are you thinking?" Westman demanded angrily, leaning over his desk and glaring at the much younger colonel. "You cannot do things like that!"

Hannibal's jaw twitched. "It thought it communicated the message rather effectively," he answered in a flat, formal tone.

"He wants to file charges," Westman replied. "He damn well _should_ file charges! God damn it, John!"

Instantly brought to attention by the outburst following the general's normal, authoritative tone, Hannibal stood ramrod straight and still. He knew this man, and knew when he was truly angry. Right now, it was best not to respond. Expression blank, he stared at the senior officer without seeing or feeling, steeling himself for the dress down he knew was coming.

But when it did, it was remarkably succinct and perfectly controlled. "I won't have it," Westman growled through his teeth, leaving the "it" open for interpretation. Hannibal could fill in the blanks, and he knew that such open threats were only uttered when he'd truly stepped over the line. Drawing in a deep, slow breath, he nodded slowly.

"I'm sorry," he finally offered, sincerely.

"Tell it to Grifton," the general answered through his teeth. "He's the one who's gonna get you sent home."

Hannibal didn't flinch, didn't respond. Whether or not Grifton had that kind of pull, Hannibal was frankly more concerned about repairing the damage to the nontraditional relationship with his commanding officer than keeping his record shiny and sparkling. Westman had a tremendous amount of power - tried and true. If _he_ wanted Hannibal removed, it would happen. If he didn't, the chances were much slimmer, regardless of the ruling from a military court.

With a frustrated sigh, Westman massaged the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "The fact of the matter is," he declared angrily, "if you can't learn to play nice with others, I am sending your ass home."

Hannibal was glad he'd already set his jaw, or those words might have made him flinch noticeably.

"The Agency is giving you a chance," Westman continued, "because frankly, I've exhausted my options. And I have no more patience for your theatrics."

"If you let me put together a team," Hannibal said passively, "I will be far more useful to both you _and_ the Agency."

"God damn it, John, do you have any idea what that would require!" Westman's anger overflowed again quite suddenly. "You're an advisor; there's no provision for a _team_ of advisors! There's no structure for it, no allowance. I would have to petition the President himself!"

Hannibal locked his stare hard on Westman before answering in a dead cold, flat tone. "Like you petitioned him for the Out There Boys?"

Westman pulled up short, standing tall and taking the potent reminder on the chin. Years of practice had taught the young colonel how to be confrontational without aggression, and how to say what he meant as pointedly as possible. The dart had hit squarely in the center of the target, and for all his authority, backed up by years of exercising it in life-or-death calls, Westman couldn't quite contain his reaction entirely. For a moment, a tense silence lingered in the room, thick enough to cut it with a knife. Finally, the general pointed a long, bony finger at Hannibal.

"I did everything I could for you," he reminded in a low, serious voice. "And don't pretend you haven't benefitted from it."

"Benefitted?" Hannibal challenged, well aware he was hitting below the belt now. "I got the very promotion that's causing me problems now. Want it back?"

Westman glared. "Don't push your luck."

Hannibal didn't miss a beat, finally breaking his posture and standing "at ease". "Thing is," he began lightly, his tone ringing with passive aggression, "if you hadn't burned damn near every one of those men - sent them home, erased their service records, erased their _legacy_ \- then you probably wouldn't be having such a hard time finding me people to work with."

"Is that what this is about?" Westman asked in disbelief. "You're pissed off about being assigned to Special Forces?"

"This isn't about the Out There Boys," Hannibal growled back. "But for the record, yes, I am extremely pissed off about your Green Beret song and dance and what it did to those kids. And if you expect me to believe you couldn't do it again, you're going to have to do better than hiding behind the President."

Westman damn near growled, but took the blow on the chin as gracefully as possible. A moment later, he looked away, shaking his head with a familiar mix of anger and shame. Then, heading silently back to his chair, Westman sat down and reached for his half-full glass. The tension eased as the seconds passed, and he took a long, slow sip.

"You know, a lot of those boys did go to work for the Agency," Westman said quietly. "You might actually find a few of them if you keep your ears open."

Looking away, Hannibal sighed again. "Right," he said without much hope. "In the meantime, what do you want me to do about Grifton?"

"I want you to apologize," Westman answered automatically.

Hannibal very nearly rolled his eyes. But force of will and years of training kept his expression impassive as Westman continued.

"Apologize to Grifton," he reiterated, "do as he tells you, and make him enjoy the pleasure of your company too much to drag you before a military court."

This time, Hannibal couldn't hide his disgust. "Oh, for crying out -"

"You will complete the Agency's assignment," Westman interrupted with a glare, "and convince them that overlooking your massive character flaws would be worth the results you can provide."

Setting his jaw tightly, Hannibal stared with a patient, blank expression and waited for the conclusion of the reprimand.

"You will keep your nose very clean until this all blows over," Westman continued authoritatively. "When they say jump, you say, 'How high?' Do I make myself clear?"

"You're handing me over to them," Hannibal realized, suppressing his indignation under a thin layer of practiced calm.

"You handed yourself over," Westman corrected. "And if this doesn't blow over then so help me God, I will not bail you out." He fixed his stare firmly on Hannibal. "I have no use for a loose cannon."

Closing his eyes and taking the insult with as much dignity as he could manage, Hannibal nodded. "I understand, Sir."

"Good," Westman clipped. "Then I expect to see a report from the Agency shortly about what a great job you did out there with your new team and how well you worked with Sam Grifton. Now get the hell out of my office."

Westman didn't expect a response, and Hannibal knew better than to give one. Left to replay the sharp rebuke over and over again in his mind, he swallowed his frustration with an inaudible growl as he turned and headed for the door.


	3. Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**

 **1967**

"Looks like our destination has incoming!" Hannibal shouted above the deafening sound of the chopper. The man on his right turned, looking out the open side of the Huey at the rising dust on the orange clay hills about ten miles away.

"No," Grifton corrected. "That's Ben Het. They're shelling it from the safe side of the border."

"There's a safe side?" Hannibal called back, unable to put the proper amount of sarcasm into words he had to yell.

"Dak To is safely out of range for any missiles fired from Cambodia," Grifton continued, ignoring him. Or maybe he was just oblivious to how unimpressed Hannibal remained with his fountain of knowledge.

Hannibal shook his head silently. He had been to Dak To before, and knew there were plenty of enemy soldiers roaming the hills around the airbase, carrying 122mm rocket launchers. But there was no reason to point out that the only way to be 'safely out of range' was to hop across the Pacific. Better to let the civilian retain his much-needed reassurance.

"You ever been out here before?" he asked Grifton, noting the way he stayed well back from the edge of the floor where Hannibal was sitting with one leg down on the skid.

"If by 'here' you mean Dak To, then no, I haven't," Grifton admitted. "But I've certainly been in similar camps."

Dressed now in sterile fatigues and wearing a press pass (God only knew why and Hannibal couldn't be bothered to ask), the man looked a bit more like he belonged in Vietnam than the first time they'd met. And at least he didn't have that wide-eyed look of fear and awe Hannibal had seen on some of the new kids who saw combat for the first time. Still, he was a civilian, and Hannibal could only hope he had no plans of actually accompanying this "specially selected" team across the wire.

Hannibal sighed as he rested his head back against the vibrating metal of the chopper. He knew the names of two men whose files he'd been given, but hadn't met them personally. One, he'd met briefly in passing and the other, he'd never heard of. With no time to prove any of them, all he had to base his assessment of their skills on was the fact that they had a combined ten drops between them. They were the men left alive and unwounded, displaced, from several different teams. None of them had been in the jungle for more than six months. This was not the ideal team brought together with the hopes of lasting permanence, and he knew it. These men were disposable, and so was he.

That fact would've gotten under his skin if it hadn't been part and parcel to working for the Agency. No matter how Westman had initially tried to sell this assignment, it wasn't a favor to Hannibal and they both knew it. Grifton knew it too; it was the elephant on the table. Hannibal had attracted too much attention and the general had run out of excuses. The Agency needed bodies with high level security clearance and Westman, however unofficial his affiliations were with the newborn branch of America's pseudo-military, was under pressure to provide them. Having been (politely) thrown to the wolves, Hannibal had three choices: he could die, he could live and sell his soul to the espionage sector, or he could pull off this mission and any others they ordered with graceful efficiency and use it as one of the many bargaining chips he kept in his pocket.

As the Huey landed, Hannibal hit the ground first, grabbing his rucksack and weapon. The sudden sound of whistling, screaming rocket fire made him look up, and he gazed up to follow the streak to where it flashed and blasted about five hundred yards away.

The response to the cry of, "Incoming!" was instantaneous. Pilots rushed back to their birds and cranked as fast as they could. Hannibal walked quickly but without tremendous alarm toward the sandbagged bunkers as another rocket hit at three hundred yards, then two hundred. Grifton had bolted ahead and was already hidden behind the walls as the screaming explosions mingled with the sound of rotors spinning, every pilot on the base scrambling to get their birds airborne before they were blown to pieces.

Hannibal dropped into the bunker, cramming close to Grifton and chuckling. "What was that about being safely out of range?" he prodded.

Grifton blinked, then composed himself as much as he was able while cowering in fear of his life. "I hardly think this is the time for jokes, Colonel Smith," he snapped back.

"Who's joking?" Hannibal grinned. "You read my file. This is just another Sunday afternoon..."

Although he wasn't quite as calm as he sounded, Hannibal knew there was absolutely no point in panicking. Either they were going to be hit or they weren't. No amount of fear and wishing and hoping was going to change it. With that in mind, he saw no reason not to taunt the man. If they lived, it would be abundantly satisfying to his ego. If they didn't, it wasn't as though Grifton would be able to say, "I told you so." They wouldn't feel a damn thing if one of those rockets did happen to hit the bunker.

Glancing around at the others who had gathered, Hannibal's gaze came to rest on a dark haired soldier with a cigarette in hand. As he watched, the man lowered his head and closed his eyes for a long moment. It wasn't fear, Hannibal knew immediately. The man was exhausted, and falling asleep in the middle of a shelling seemed a sensible thing to do after a certain point of sleep-deprivation. The worst that could happen was he'd never wake up, and that would be worth it for a few minutes of shut eye. Besides, there was nothing to do right now but wait it out. They couldn't go deeper; they couldn't shoot back, and the enemy wouldn't send infantry in until they'd spent all their missiles.

"You look like hell, soldier," Hannibal noted sympathetically.

The man looked up and forced a weak smile. "Feel like it too," he admitted, weakly extending a hand. "Range Copley."

"Hannibal Smith."

They shook hands, and Range managed a weightless laugh. "No shit? I heard you were dead."

Before Hannibal could answer, another eight-foot, 120 pound rocket smashed into the dirt just a hundred yards away and shook the ground. A few cries of surprise were followed by signs of the cross as men prayed. But still, there was nothing to do but sit and wait.

"Have this a lot?" Hannibal asked, keeping Range focused for a moment.

"Two or three times a day for the past week," Range muttered back.

Suddenly, it was quiet. As the silence lingered for long seconds, then minutes, soldiers began to look around, sit up, and take notice. Grifton stood shakily to his feet. On the far side of the bunker, Hannibal saw one of the men whose name and photograph he'd been given as part of the new "team" with which he would have zero opportunity to rehearse any mission plans before hitting the ground.

"Anybody thought to send a few guys out there and clear the area?" Hannibal asked, distracting himself from the irritation he still felt over the complete lack of preparation.

Range shook his head. "Not my call, Colonel. We're the only team on standby and we've got six of 'em on the ground over in Laos. We can't just go out for a walk."

Hannibal nodded. "I understand." Still, a hunting trip on those hills would definitely be on his to-do list.

"Hey, Hannibal!"

Turning on his heel, Hannibal found himself face-to-face with a smiling giant of a man - red-haired, freckle-faced, and built like a tank. Smiling in recognition, Hannibal extended a hand. "Indigo," he greeted, matching the smile.

Nearly crushing Hannibal's fingers, no doubt quite by accident, Indigo shook his hand. "Heard you were coming," he said with a grin. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the others."

A few steps behind, all but completely ignored but doing his damnedest to appear confident and in control, Grifton followed along after the two soldiers, avoiding the burning bits of buildings and the remaining fragments of the missiles the enemy had welcomed them with.

 **1982**

Rachel Alvine was one of the industry's up and coming agents - a 6'1" bleach blonde who bore no resemblance to the decidedly petite, dark-skinned woman who'd visited the set the day before. Hannibal wasn't surprised by the inconsistency. He'd been counting on the fact that it was at least possible - if not likely - his coffee date's story wouldn't check out. The ever-present paranoia that had served him well for ten years proved once again worth the effort.

He was, however, surprised and genuinely impressed to find the imposter had gone through the trouble of using a real agent's name and card. A quick but friendly chat at the real Miss Alvine's office ended with a professional handshake and another, identical business card in hand. That probably meant she wasn't working for Lynch. He wouldn't bother with such preparations; he had yet to figure out the value of a coherent plan.

For his part, Hannibal really wished he had a photo of the "Rachel Alvine" from the set when he stopped at the office of Rachel Alvine the agent. Quite possibly, the authentic Ms. Alvine would have recognized the imposter and might have given him a lead as to her true identity. Although Hannibal felt pretty sure she was bad news, he didn't know what kind of setup this was, or who he was playing against. Before he danced into the lion's den, he preferred to know those things. He didn't mind a well-set trap; some of them were fun to spring just to see how the pieces fell. But he wasn't going to gamble with his freedom just for the hell of it. She wanted something and he needed to know what it was.

And so, in spite of her nice legs, he didn't really feel bad about letting her sit and sweat and fidget for an hour until figuring out she'd been stood up for the coffee date. Bottom line, she'd lied. And lying potential-threats could sit in the sun from now 'til kingdom come, for all he cared. Sipping his coffee slowly, he watched her under the low brim of the cowboy hat that kept the sun out of his eyes and protected the layers of makeup. He wasn't sure who, exactly, he'd have to fool with the disguise. If it was just her, no problem. If it was someone more dangerous, he needed to be ready for an inconspicuous getaway, if not a lightning fast one. And he was fully expecting her to have more eyes on the cafe than he could see right now. Who would respond when he didn't show? Who would she contact? She obviously knew who he was but so far had made no effort to blow his cover. So what did she want?

He smiled knowingly as she checked her watch for the third time in five minutes. Shouldn't be long now…

The unimpressive, grey sedan that pulled up and parallel parked directly in front of her didn't immediately attract any attention. But a moment later, a young man stepped out, grabbed a large bouquet of flowers out of the back seat, and walked right up to her. "Rachel Alvine?"

Hannibal was just close enough to hear her surprised response. "Yes?"

"Oh, good." The boy gave a sigh of relief as he handed her the flowers. "This has to be the most unusual delivery I've ever done."

She stared at him in shock as he offered a polite smile, turned, and walked away. The look on her face as she watched him go made Hannibal smile. She didn't know what to think. That was a good sign. As she took the card and read it, he waited for her reaction. He knew exactly what it said. He'd called it in just an hour earlier. _"Tag, you're it. -H"_

For a moment, she blinked in confusion. Then, perhaps realizing he would only give away his identity - "H" was not "John Smith" - if she was expected to understand its significance, her eyes widened to the size of saucers. He lowered his head, attention on his coffee as her eyes darted around. Inconspicuously "reading" the morning paper, he watched her reflection in the window as she studied the card again, then leaned forward with her head in hand.

"Shit…"

The reaction, simple and expected as it was, told him plenty. She had an agenda, and whether she was merely disappointed with her lack of success or she was working as a plant for someone else who would give her hell for it didn't much matter. The longer he watched, the more he leaned towards the former. Certainly, she wasn't there for Lynch; his pawns had nothing to lose, no reason for such an emotional response. If she was working for someone, maybe it was someone interesting.

Hannibal smiled to himself as he took one last sip of his coffee then set his empty cup aside as he stood slowly to his feet. Leaning heavily on an old wooden cane, he turned and hobbled in the opposite direction. If she had any determination at all, she'd be back. He'd find out soon enough all he wanted to know.

 **1967**

Hannibal hadn't asked about the actual significance of the man they were supposed to retrieve. He was Vietnamese - that much was clear from his photograph - and according to Agency sources, could be found at the small camp just across the border of Cambodia. His name was Lam Nguyen. He had a military record for the NVA - god only knew how the Agency had obtained it - and was not expected to come willingly. The orders were to locate and retrieve him - alive, at all costs.

Grifton read the facts of the assignment to the team like a bullet-point presentation, but Hannibal didn't complain. Whatever crimes Nguyen might be guilty of, nobody really wanted to know. It would be easier to restrain themselves from putting a bullet in his head if they hadn't heard of his offenses. The fact that the Agency was not particularly forthcoming with their intelligence actually served as a convenience.

Though it was still too early to really evaluate the team he'd been assigned, Hannibal was cautiously impressed by their coherence as well as their recon skills. They were quiet, well-trained, and paid close attention to signals. Perhaps there was a reason they were the last survivors from their former units. Or, in the case of Hank "Copper" Fiore, one of three survivors from an overrun camp. Their exposure to the darker side of the adventure here in Vietnam made up for their inexperience with meticulous caution. Unfortunately, that caution would likely be their breaking point should the plan - when he formed it - require decisive action. They'd all seen death; they didn't want to experience it firsthand.

Grifton, thankfully, stayed behind without complaint. The team of five Americans was accompanied by three local Nungs and, peculiarly, an Australian comms specialist who said nothing and provided no obvious benefit to the team but must have been somehow intricately involved with the Agency's larger mission. Thankfully, he was suitably trained and kept up without difficulty as the team left the chopper behind in the LZ, waited to ensure the area was clear, then slowly picked their way toward the camp Hannibal could only hope would be there. Ordinarily, he would've wanted to see it for himself, to know the layout and the area - if only from overhead. Scouting was important, and he hadn't been given time for any of that. Of course, if he'd had time, he probably would've used it to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of his team. They were all less likely to die that way...

The camp they found wasn't much to speak of. Certainly, it wasn't fortified and sandbagged the way the American camps were; it didn't need to be. A few thatch huts, a few fire pits, and a rickety old truck in the southeast corner, nearest to the road. Hand-dug holes in the dirt alerted Hannibal to the underground network of tunnels undoubtedly stretching out in all directions. The enemy liked to be underground - to move and hide and even live in the booby-trapped crawlspaces burrowed into the dirt. It took a special kind of training to clear those tunnels. For his part, Hannibal steered well clear of them.

The camp itself was obviously a temporary setup, which explained the need for urgency. They didn't want their target to move on to God-knows-where if they'd pinpointed him here. A few yards from the edge of the slash-and-burn clearing, Hannibal spent several minutes watching for any signs of movement, but saw none. Was it already empty? Certainly, it wasn't abandoned. The number of holes he located in the ground - so fresh they hadn't even been concealed yet - identified this as a nerve cluster for the network. Possibly, the camp's usual occupants were all crawling around under their feet.

He was just about to direct the men to move in when a blood-curdling scream rang out from the central hut. Immediately and instinctively, his rifle was ready. But nothing moved. The first scream had only just started to die from lack of breath when a second joined it. Two victims, Hannibal immediately identified. But how many assailants? Not many could fit inside the structure - four, maybe five.

Forcing his concentration to a single point, Hannibal gestured to the team on his right, then his left to circle and move in. He hoped they would have the sense to watch for traps, but frankly, there wasn't much he could do about it if they didn't. That's what training was for, and he hadn't been allowed such luxury. Fixing his attention on the tent as the screams continued, he moved forward at a quick but impeccably careful pace, avoiding any place where the earth had been disturbed, keeping a close watch for lines or trip wires. If they could converge on the hut without incident, he was fairly certain they could take control in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, the deafening explosion nearby eliminated any hope of the subtle approach. It was a far louder sound than Hannibal would've expected from the average land mine and he knew instinctively that he was a man down. He couldn't guess which of them had been lost and there was really no time to think about it. With nowhere to duck for cover and no chance of getting back to the edge of the clearing, he readied his rifle and called loudly to remind the others converging on the hut, "We need him alive!"

Dropping to avoid the spray of bullets that immediately sailed over the top of his head, Hannibal aimed carefully on full manual. The men inside the hut didn't know what they were shooting at or where; they operated on blind instinct as they fired through the windowless, thatch walls. But Hannibal's team knew precisely where they'd emerge. It didn't quite even out the odds, but anything working in his favor was a welcome relief. Taking men alive was immeasurably harder than shooting them dead...

The rattle of AK-47s and startled cries of pain somehow intensified the flow of adrenaline. The three Vietnamese in the doorway dropped as they took bullets in their legs, but kept firing on blind instinct alone. Distracted by the pain, their aim was not spectacular, and the bullets flew everywhere. Crawling closer, Hannibal aimed now for shoulders and arms, disabling their grip on the weapons. Finally near enough to see the men clearly, he confirmed none of the three resembled the photograph of the target and put a single bullet into the heads of each before positioning at the entrance to the hut alongside Indigo and two of the Nungs.

Pausing for a moment with weapons raised at the opening they were not yet at an angle to peer into, they regrouped silently. Four men was not nine, and Hannibal's jaw tightened as he realized he'd lost track of half his team since they'd moved. Gunfire from near the perimeter made both Nungs spin around, but Hannibal kept his gun fixed on the hut and whatever might be in there. He couldn't wait any longer. There were more men in this camp than three, and chances were they would be returning post-haste once they realized they were under attack.

"Can you hotwire that truck?" Hannibal asked the man beside him quickly, although it was almost too much to hope for.

"No," Indigo replied. "But I can find keys."

"Do it," Hannibal ordered. "You two -" he shot the briefest glance at the Nungs "- cover the perimeter from here."

Eyes wide, they looked at each other, then nodded in fearful compliance. Hannibal understood their hesitation. Out here in the middle of the clearing with enemy in the trees, they were extremely vulnerable. But he still wasn't sure what he'd find inside the hut and might need help. God only knew where the rest of his men were.

Although his perception of time was admittedly skewed by the adrenaline, his internal clock had been steadily counting off seconds since he'd stepped into the clearing and it had been no more than sixty. Even without the element of surprise, he still had time on his side. Stepping forward, into the tent, he was fully prepared to come face-to-face with a half dozen more enemy soldiers. Instead, he saw only two - both tied to rickety wooden chairs.

The hot, thick smell of blood and burned flesh made Hannibal take a small step back even before his eyes took in all he was seeing. Both men were naked. One was dead, surrounded by a pool of blood, entrails pouring into his lap and all over the floor from a slit in his stomach. The other, only half conscious, slumped forward in his chair with blood gushing from his mouth.

Recovering quickly from his shock, Hannibal shouldered his rifle, confirmed the dead man was not his target, then turned his attention to the injuries of the other. There was, frankly, no way to tell if he was the target or not. His face was so badly bruised, mangled, and swollen - not to mention blistered where a red-hot dagger of some kind had cooked the skin - he was unrecognizable. His right hand was missing all five fingers and the tips of the fingers on the left were bleeding where nails used to be. Those injuries were not fresh; they'd stopped bleeding some time ago. They also weren't the worst of the treatment he'd received. Three ribs protruded from his chest - daggers poking up from the inside - and his legs were mangled, as if they'd been twisted past the point of shattering the bone and joints.

"Peeshhh…"

Fucking hell, he was still conscious. The plea ended in a gurgling sound as he choked on the blood draining from his mouth where his tongue had been.

"Peesh…" He shuddered, a pitiful sound that might have been a sob. "Peesh…"

Indigo poked his head into the hut. "I got the keys. What do you want me to -" He stopped suddenly as he saw the man. "Jesus fucking Christ! Tell me that's not our target!"

"Hannibal!" called another voice from the doorway of the hut as Indigo moved inside. The newcomer was Copper, very much out of breath. "We got reinforcements on the way. Entire platoon, from the looks of it, at about five hundred yards. They're moving in fast."

"Hold 'em off as long as you can," Hannibal ordered. "Take the Nungs and listen for my signal. Indigo help me with this."

Copper disappeared again. Indigo shouldered his rifle and moved closer. "You're a medic," Hannibal pointed out. "Can you keep him alive?"

Wide eyed, Indigo shook his head. "Fuck no," he stammered. "I don't know if I could even stop the bleeding! Cauterize the wounds, maybe, but without sterilization or time and the pain alone would probably kill him if -"

"We're operating under the assumption this is our target," Hannibal clarified, cutting him off abruptly. "I'm not leaving him behind."

"Four hundred yards!" Copper called loudly from outside, amidst the exchange of gunfire.

"If we move him, he'll die," Indigo stated, confirming what Hannibal already knew. "No doubt about it."

"I'm not leaving him," Hannibal said again.

Indigo shrugged off his pack in immediate compliance. "I'll give him morphine if it's worth the risk for the body."

Hannibal studied the agonized, tortured figure for a long moment, the meaning in those words clear. "Do it," he ordered with appropriate seriousness. No human being, ally or enemy, deserved to die like this.

"Two hundred yards!"

"Peshhh," the man whispered again, his head lulling forward to let the blood drain. "Kahhh me..."

"That sounds like English," Indigo noted, clearly speaking to the man rather than Hannibal. His tone was gentler, comforting. "And I hear you, buddy. But let's do it my way, huh?"

The man's swollen eyes slid shut as soon as the needle touched his arm. But it wasn't until the third vial that he whispered again. "Fank… ooo…"

"Let's move!" Hannibal ordered. There was no time to wait for the drug to do its work, to give the man an easy passing. Instead, he stood opposite Indigo and hoisted him up, dragging him toward the truck. The agonized screams faded into the man's final breath.

 **1967**

"You were supposed to bring him alive," a calmly patronizing Sam Grifton noted as the mangled corpse of his preordained target was carried out of the chopper.

Covered in blood and dripping sweat, Hannibal stared at the man incredulously. "Are you shitting me?" he asked, completely serious. Surely, this was all part of a joke if Grifton was actually criticizing the work he'd done today. But Grifton missed his cue to laugh - which, admittedly, would have been in poor taste anyway - and failed to explain the joke. Instead, he stared steadily at Hannibal as though waiting for an explanation.

Hannibal's anger flared. Pulling it under control with masterful skill, he glared at the sickeningly naive civilian. "I lost three men out there today," he growled. "I couldn't even retrieve their bodies because I was too busy trying to rescue your target."

"We'll send a Bright Light team for them," Grifton replied coolly, as though the simple answer solved the problem.

"That won't bring them back to life!" Hannibal snapped back with loud and vicious anger.

"They're soldiers," Grifton reminded callously. "They die."

Hannibal moved. He might have actually reached the man, or even succeeded in putting his fist right through that delicately curved jaw if not for Indigo stepping between them with an arm out to hold him back. "Woah, c'mon, Colonel," he said low. "C'mon, bastard's not worth it."

Regaining that firm grip on his control, Hannibal took a few deep breaths and stepped back again. But he never took his eyes off of the arrogant prick whose blood would've felt so nice on the back of his knuckles. "I'm done with you," he said firmly. "You go to hell. Don't ever ask me to pull one of these cheap suicide missions again."

Grifton blinked slowly, but didn't otherwise respond. With hands still on Hannibal's shoulders, Indigo pushed him back towards the barracks. "C'mon, let's go," he said quietly, breathing a noticeable sigh of relief when Hannibal turned and led the way. "I need a drink. And so do you."


	4. Chapter Three

**CHAPTER THREE**

 **1982**

Slightly confused and decidedly unimpressed by the little shop full of trinkets and trash, Suzanne Davids stood in the doorway and wondered if she had gotten the right information from her sources. This could not possibly be the starting point for the infamous A-Team; it looked like a garage that needed a good spring cleaning. The counters and tables set around the room like a maze were piled high with all sorts of tools and cords and small appliances and bits of electronics. TVs and stereos, speakers and lamps, bowls and tablecloths and shot glasses were scattered around with no method to the madness. What was this shop supposed to sell, exactly?

"What you want?" demanded the shop owner with a scrutinizing look and an unfamiliar accent - Asian, generally, but without the fluidity of a native speaker of any Asian language she could distinguish. "Why you come here?"

He was hunched over and larger than any Chinese she had ever seen. And he had blue eyes. No Chinese – not even mixed – had blue eyes. He was so obviously a plant, it almost made her smile. Interesting that Hannibal would be so extra cautious about so many things, and ultimately not take the precaution to get an actual Chinese man to play the part of Mr. Lee. It wasn't like he would've had to pay him all that much. This shop was only open for three hours in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. If he'd gotten an actual Chinese man to run it, he could've lived partly on the profits - assuming he would've found something profitable to sell - and made this cover a little less conspicuous. Who would've thought he'd be so careless. But she was definitely in the right place.

"I want to hire the A-Team," she said firmly.

He gave her a funny look. "There no A-Team here, Missy."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. Of course she would have to play this game. She hadn't gone through the process the rest of them had - random meetings in alleyways, crazy directions that led to nowhere, standing on dark corners in the rain until finally being directed here. She didn't have time for all that.

"Alright, look, " she said with a polite smile. "I've talked to six people who've hired them before and they all have this shop - and _you_ \- in common. You're Mr. Lee, right?"

He stared, neither confirming nor denying anything. She didn't really need it; she knew who he was. This was the last stop, according to the A-Team's previous clients. He wanted money, he wanted a story, and then he'd deliver both to Hannibal Smith, who would be in contact within a week, but usually only twenty-four hours or so. The story varied little from one client to the next and she'd come prepared.

"I Mr. Lee," the man finally replied. "Who are you?"

"My name is Jennifer Sanchos." Eyes locked on him, she reached into her purse. The way he tensed, it wasn't clear what he was expecting her to pull out of there. She smirked as she withdrew a stack of bills and set them on the counter. "I have money. I hear they need a lot of it. I want to hire them."

He eyed the money for a long moment, then leaned on the door frame, arms across as he eyed her. "What you need A-Team for?" he demanded.

The money seemed to have the desired effect. Former Special Forces/SOG or not, Smith and his team were nothing more than mercenaries now. Still, all six of the people she had talked to came with some kind of bleeding heart case, so she had taken the precaution of a cover story that would withstand a background check. The money alone wouldn't do her much good if she couldn't entice Smith into taking it.

Biting her lip and hesitating for just the right amount of time, she gave a seemingly nervous glance around the room. "It's my employer," she said softly, worried. "Teladine Aerospace. Someone is stealing secrets."

Mr. Lee shrugged. "Why you care?"

"Why do I care?" She acted as if she couldn't believe he'd just asked that. But really, she wasn't all that surprised. "Because they're _dangerous_ secrets. Teladine Aerospace handles top secret government contracts!"

He watched her with no obvious reaction. "Sound like a problem for police," he concluded. "I give you phone number. You wait."

She frowned as he turned away. Although she'd expected this sort of thing, it still irritated her. "No, please, you don't understand." She added a desperate, pleading tone to her voice and leaned on the counter, eyes wide and full of worry. "I can't go to the police. These are top secret projects, worth millions. If the people who are taking them find out, they'll kill me. Please Mr. Lee, I need the A-Team."

He turned back to her and crossed his arms over his chest, brow furrowed. "Missy have very big problem," he concluded. "Project worth millions, you say?"

"That's right," she replied with an intensely worried look.

From what the former clients had said there was a lot of runaround and denial before getting to Smith. The man was paranoid - but not in the stockade, so it seemed to work for him. She only wished they could dispense with the formalities and get down to business.

Mr. Lee was studying her curiously. "This not seem like a job for fugitive A-Team," he declared. "Sound like big government problem."

"I need to get proof before the government will listen to me. _"_ There was nothing but complete sincerity and concerned fear in her voice. Yes, acting was an important and well-practiced art. "And by the time the government gets around to investigating, it will be too late. This is more than just money. These secrets can get a lot of people hurt."

She had worked on her cover story. The company she'd invented had defense contracts, and it would pass any background checks they ran it through. She was rather pleased with how well she had prepared and how easy it was to slide right in to her story.

"A-Team is very expensive," he informed. "How much money Missy got?" He eyed the stack on the table.

"I have fifteen hundred here, for a retainer." She paused and bit her lip, making sure to still look worried. And now for the coup de gras... "I have access to another thirty-five thousand." She lowered her eyes. "My parents died in a car accident two years ago. I've been saving the insurance money for a house. But this is more important."

"That not enough," he said dismissively. "A-Team is very expensive."

She stared in genuine shock. What the hell did he mean, that wasn't enough? They'd done more for less with some of the clients she'd talked to! She was just a poor girl trying to do right and stay safe. The anger flashed inside of her, but she kept it tightly reined. Of course all they gave a damn about was money. Why would she ever think anything different?

"I can get more," she assured him. "Please, just tell me how much. Please, Mr. Lee."

Yes, the character she had created would plead so openly. And yes, Smith's team would of course hold her up for more money. She kept every hint of cynicism out of her expression as she gave her best puppy dog eyes and whimpered pitifully.

His suspicion was obvious. "How I know you are who you say?"

She blinked. "What?"

He held out a hand. "You show ID."

Again, she stared at him blankly. He wanted identification? Did all their clients have to go through this? There was something uncomfortable about handing over her driver's license to a complete stranger, and she couldn't imagine any of them would have felt otherwise. Granted, most of them were considerably more desperate than she and luckily, she'd prepared. Carefully, she withdrew her wallet and the driver's license belonging to Jennifer Sanchos, then handed it to him.

He studied it for a moment and finally nodded. "You go to pier at Hudson Beach, tomorrow night, seven o'clock. If A-Team want work for you, they meet you there." He handed her license back, then turned. "You go now."

It was clearly the end of the conversation, and he headed up the steps at the back of the store. She gave Mr. Lee her best relieved smile, although he was turned away and couldn't see it. "Thank you, Mr. Lee."

Once he was out of sight, she turned on her heel. Careful to stay in character, she headed for her car, watching her surroundings covertly. Another meet, and this one would be the last if he stayed true to form. It gave them time to check her story, and gave her a chance to do a quick recon of the area before they met face-to-face again.

It wasn't until she'd merged into traffic and was sure no one was following that she let herself smile. Hannibal Smith had bested her once, but it wasn't going to happen again. As soon as Mr. Lee delivered her story to him, she would be calling the shots.

 **July, 1967**

 **Fort Bragg**

Eyes tracking the white line on the side of the road, Templeton Peck found himself wondering what the hell he was getting himself into as the bus slowed at the entrance to Ft. Bragg. The Special Forces Qualification Test had been the strangest thing the young private had ever seen in his life. It read like something out of the TV series _Mission Impossible_ \- tape recordings to listen to, photos to study, questions about clandestine affairs in unimaginable situations. Those questions needed to be correctly answered, which was interesting considering they were all subjective and the multiple choice format didn't even offer what he would've considered the right answer.

Later, he found out he'd scored 483 out of 500 - the highest in the group of 25 masochistic souls applying for another few months of grueling training. As far as Tem was concerned, the more training he had, the better equipped he would be to not only survive, but make this season of his life work to his overall benefit. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now, as the bus rolled through the guarded gate, he was reconsidering his ambitions and the lengths he'd gone to achieve them.

He'd had to talk his way into even being allowed to take the test. At eighteen (his age on paper), he was neither old enough nor was his rank high enough to qualify. But he would be old enough by the time he finished training, he argued, and would bust his ass to climb the ranks if that's what it took. His enthusiasm had impressed the recruiter at Ft. Benning, and after no small amount of pleading, bargaining, and cajoling, the man had finally humored him.

The recruiter had been frank; Special Forces was not for the weak, the stupid, the insubordinate, or the scared. Tem had smirked at the time. He was none of that. At seventeen (his age, not on paper), he'd already been through enough training to know how to give the instructors what they wanted. If they wanted him to yell, he yelled. If they wanted him to feel pain, he felt it. If they wanted him to break, he broke. Once he'd figured out the game - and it hadn't taken him long - he'd learned to embrace his role just like an actor in a screenplay. It had been surprisingly easy.

Now that he'd gotten what he wanted, he was ready for another ridiculous regimen of training at Ft. Bragg. In basic, he'd stepped out of the bus and immediately found himself face-to-face with shouting drill instructors. In Airborne-Infantry school, more screaming. Jump school was just more of the same, only there the black-hatted man had dropped them all for pushups just as soon as their feet hit the ground. The same song and dance every time - Templeton had memorized the steps long ago. He'd slept on the bus, and he was ready for whatever they threw at him.

As the wheels came to a final stop, Templeton followed the procession to the front. He stood straight the moment his feet hit the dirt, but there was no yelling. There wasn't even anyone around. Startled, he locked gazes with each of the other six guys who'd qualified for the program. All of them looked as confused as he felt. What the hell were they supposed to do now? The bus driver closed the door behind them, then pulled away, leaving them standing in a neat line before a white building. Nothing moved.

The door of the large building looming over them finally opened, and Templeton took in a breath, prepared for anything. But the sergeant first class walking toward them, clipboard in hand, and didn't even look up. He simply stood, perched at the top of the porch steps, and consulted his documents. After another quick exchange of confused glances, the new recruits headed over to him without a word. Still, he didn't look up until after he'd tucked the clipboard under his arm and lit a cigarette.

"Y'all can go get some chow in the mess hall," he said casually, almost disinterestedly. He gave the newcomers a once-over glance before gesturing loosely at one of the buildings nearby. "Go 'head and put y'alls stuff in the hall there. When ya done, come on back an' I'll get y'alls bedding. Questions?"

Templeton stared. When nobody answered, the man turned away. "Go on, now," he called over his shoulder with a wave of his hand. He went back to the clipboard before he'd returned back into the building, leaving the seven soldiers to look at each other and their surroundings in confusion.

Special Forces was definitely going to be a different world.

 **1982**

Knowing Hannibal preferred to keep his apartment as a "safe house" of sorts, while sleeping at any number of motels scattered all throughout the city, Face was surprised to be meeting him here. He was not, however, surprised that Hannibal noted his arrival from the moment he pulled into the parking lot. By the time he reached the sidewalk, Hannibal was standing on the second story balcony in his loose jeans and abnormally-casual T-shirt, leaning on a railing that's support looked dubious.

Hannibal waited until Face was in comfortable speaking distance before calling down. "Evening, Lieutenant."

Face smiled - the practiced and exceedingly casual smile he wore while lingering on the verge of irritation and maybe even frustration - and offered a wave. "Colonel."

Hannibal leaned on the railing, nodding to the entrance below. "Door's open."

Without breaking stride, Face entered the studio apartment, locked the door behind him, and started up the carpeted steps. He suspected he already knew how this conversation would go, and although he dutifully played his part, it seemed unlikely that Hannibal would actually listen to any of his carefully-considered advice no matter how artfully it was presented. Still, he rehearsed the lines a few more times just on the off chance he might be heard, and paused at the top of the stairway to glance around.

Hannibal didn't spend much time here, and it showed. There was no furniture in the studio apartment except for a tattered couch, a mattress on the floor, a ripped 2-seat sofa, and a couple of lawn chairs at a fold-out table. Face regarded the decor with muted distaste as he joined the colonel on the narrow balcony. The sliding door jerked and caught and stuck on its way open, and Face's opinion of the apartment descended even further into the pits of disgust. Still, he kept his opinions to himself. All things considered, he'd slept in worse.

"Drink?" Hannibal offered, raising his glass ever-so-casually to gesture toward the narrow wooden ledge by the door. Held up by warped 2x4s with peeling white paint and long splinters, it didn't look like the safest place to set a bottle of rather expensive single malt scotch.

Face set the abnormally thin file he'd been carrying beside the bottle before retrieving a glass from the kitchen counter. Returning to the balcony, he studied the scotch for a moment before pouring. The silence lingered as he took a small sip, then turned to see Hannibal waiting for a report that would forgo any small talk.

"So, I spent pretty much the entire day running down this new client of yours," Face offered as he leaned back on the frame of the open door. It looked considerably more secure than the rotted barrier supporting Hannibal's weight. "This Rachel Alvine-slash-Jennifer Sanchos? And I gotta say -" he tipped his glass to the folder "- I don't have much to show for it. She's a ghost."

Hannibal raised a brow, amused. "As in spook?"

Face shrugged and took another sip. "Possibly," he admitted. "But actually, it wasn't a play on words. I haven't got a clue who she's working for."

Whether the confused, blinking stare was genuine or exaggerated mockery, Face couldn't tell for certain. "None at all?" Hannibal asked with an equally ambiguous tone.

Face continued to hold his gaze, finally sitting forward and opening the folder to a few hand-scrawled notes on the first page. "Her original name is Suzanne Marie Davids; I can tell you that much. And she didn't get those IDs off the street. She's changed her name legally ten times in the past five years, across seven states."

Hannibal's frown betrayed his instant wariness - and with good reason. "That leaves a hell of a paper trail," he pointed out, following the same train of thought Face had pursued. If she was government, why waste time wandering in and out of courts, leaving a paper trail? If she wasn't, how could she pull it off? More importantly, why?

"Yeah, but it's the _only_ paper trail," Face said simply. "She's the daughter of Emma and Clint Davids, both deceased and, by the way, they're ghosts, too. Went to school in Columbus, Ohio - and I mean high school, not college. Date of birth 21 May, 1955. Past a speeding ticket at the age of 22, I've got nothing on her except the name changes."

"Were they marriages?" Hannibal asked. "Divorces?"

"Neither," Face replied with a shake of his head. "Just legal name changes in Florida, Nebraska, Maine, South Carolina, Michigan, Texas, and Oregon."

Hannibal raised a brow. "She gets around."

"That's the thing," Face replied. "The legal process to change a name takes time. In several of these instances, the court order was signed off on just a week apart."

Hannibal took the folder and glanced over the dates for himself. "Meaning…?" he prodded.

"That she probably didn't go through this process the typical way it's done," Face clarified. "Somebody pulled strings."

"Witness protection?" Hannibal guessed.

Face shrugged. "Maybe, but I doubt it. The name changes were tough to trace, but I was still able to do it in 24 hours without leaving the state of California. Witness protection would make it harder than that to find their people. At least, I'd hope they would."

"What about where she's living now?" Hannibal asked. "Did you check with anyone there?"

Another shrug from Face was accompanied by a brief, cynical laugh. "She could live in Never Never Land for all I know," he said, watching Hannibal's eyes move over the paperwork. "The address you gave me off of her driver's license? That building was condemned ten years ago, torn down in '78. And the address on the speeding ticket, same deal. Condemned house, since torn down."

"Any connection between the two?" The curiosity in Hannibal's tone mingled with distraction as he continued to peruse the sparse documentation.

Face reached for his glass again. "None that I could see."

"Was it condemned at the time of the ticket?" Hannibal questioned, flipping the front page up and scanning for the answer although he clearly expected a response from Face.

"The shopping mall that's there now has been there since the late 60s," Face answered, glancing out at the parking lot as Hannibal shuffled through pages. Birth certificate, five copies of change of name, certificate of death on both her parents - for the same day. Must have been an accident. High school transcripts - all As - and said speeding ticket.

Finally, he looked back up at Face. "This is it?" he questioned, as if he hadn't heard a word Face had been saying since he'd arrived.

Face gave a full, practiced smile. "Yes. Ten hours of sifting and typing and talking and bribing - because, I've got to say, the DMV is becoming more and more difficult to work with - and I still can't tell you a thing about her car, house, income, social status, career path or what in the _hell_ she would need us for." He paused. "What did she say this job was, anyways?"

"Something about government secrets being stolen," Hannibal shrugged, as if it were a meaningless detail. "Who do you think she's working for? FBI? CIA?"

"DEA, FDA," Face teased with a smile. "Hell, I can't even rule out KGB at this point. But whoever she is, if she actually has a problem, she doesn't need our help. She's got plenty of resources of her own."

Hannibal chuckled as he looked back down at the folder. When he looked up again, he had that damnable glint in his eye. "I _like_ her. She's interesting."

Face's smile fell instantly as the conversation plunged into the heart of all he'd been dreading since the moment he discovered she was "interesting."

"Don't do that," he said in tone fit for the driest sections of Death Valley.

"Do what?" Hannibal asked innocently, still grinning.

Face groaned. He couldn't help it. "Aw, come on, Hannibal," he pleaded, the carefully-contained irritation filtering into his tone in spite of his best efforts. "Whoever she is, she's clearly trouble."

"Yes," Hannibal agreed, "but she could be a very fun kind of trouble."

Rolling his eyes, Face shoved his frustration down and attempted to talk sense in spite of the fact he knew it was pointless. "Look, this isn't funny," he said, drawing on the lines he'd practiced a hundred times over. "The only thing we doknow about her is that she lied and she's got no past. What part of that strikes you as a good idea?"

"Does she have a military record at all?" Hannibal asked, as if that might prove a point.

Anxious about that tone, let alone the fact that he could practically see the cogs turning in Hannibal's brain as he justified the unjustifiable, Face shifted. "No, but -"

"Lynch wouldn't go through this kind of trouble to cover up a plant," Hannibal concluded, handing the folder back.

Setting the glass down a bit too hard on the wooden ledge, Face leaned forward. He was losing this argument - as expected - and once Hannibal decided to pursue this mysterious pseudo-client, there would be no stopping him. More importantly, he'd drag them all into the fray - a situation that usually ended up with one or all of them in jail.

"So Lynch isn't involved," he granted. "That doesn't mean she's safe."

"No," Hannibal agreed. "It means she's interesting. It's all in how you look at things, Lieutenant."

Face's expression soured even more at the "kid in a candy store" look Hannibal was wearing. Why the hell did he have to play cat and mouse? No, scratch that. Why did he have to _enjoy_ playing cat and mouse?

"All this does is add a new player to the lineup of people who want us in handcuffs," Face said seriously. "And this one doesn't seem to have to play by any particular set of rules."

Hannibal shrugged. "We don't know that. Maybe she had a legitimate reason for going to ground."

"And lying to you?" Face challenged.

Taking a drink of his own, Hannibal gestured with the glass. "Clearly she has something to hide," he admitted. "But that doesn't make her a threat. She might actually need our help."

He couldn't even say it with a straight face, and there was no way in hell he could expect Face to believe it. They both knew was just playing with the fire, like he did every time he got on the jazz. Realizing he'd already lost, Face set the folder on the ledge and massaged the bridge of his nose to ease away the quickly-forming headache.

Hannibal chuckled, then turned slightly more serious. "Don't worry about it, Lieutenant," he said. "I think for now I'm going to keep the team out of it. At least until I know what her agenda is."

"You're what?" Face demanded, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. Keep the team out of it? That was just asking for trouble - even worse than the ultimate outcome of dragging them all into it.

"Something wrong?" Hannibal asked with that same innocent tone.

Face stared at him incredulously, jaw dropped. "Not unless you just told me you're going to try and handle this unknown woman who's probably working for some government agency alone."

With a knowing smile, Hannibal shrugged. "There aren't any government agencies besides the Army that ought to have any interest in us."

"We're fugitives," Face reminded with a deep frown. "LAPD, FBI - they're all law enforcement and they all have as much of an interest in us as Lynch does. Forget the court martial; do you realize how much property damage we've caused across a dozen states?"

"Though I must admit..." Hannibal wasn't even listening to him. Staring off into space with that stupid grin on his face, he was lost in his own thoughts. "I was hoping to get some more information on her before I confronted her on that over-the-top cover story she gave Mr. Lee."

Face sighed. "All the more reason to just walk away," he tried in one last ditch effort at making the adrenaline junkie see sense.

But Hannibal only smiled, and sipped his drink once more, glancing over the top of it with eyes dancing. "Yeah," he agreed. "But what would be the fun in that?"

Face sighed, resigning to the inevitable. The man was definitely on the jazz. Finished with his drink, Face poured another. Without doubt, he was going to need it.


	5. Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

 **1982**

Threat.

Hannibal was bolt upright in an instant, before he even knew why, the gun under his pillow in hand. Something had woken him and he wasn't alone. The front door closed. His heart skipped. Footfalls on the stairs leading up from the door made his grip tighten. Sleep had vanished in the blink of an eye. He moved slowly to keep the bed from creaking - to his feet and then across to the open doorway. In the darkened, near-black room, he looked around the corner just as the intruder reached the landing and stepped into the living room of the efficiency apartment, just far enough to cross right in front of Hannibal. There, he stopped dead as the barrel of Hannibal's pistol met the back of his neck.

"Hannibal, it's me."

The voice didn't immediately register. Hannibal kept the gun in place as he took one silent step to the side and flicked on the light. Finally, he let out the breath he'd been holding in a sigh of relief. "BA, what are you doing here?"

He could see BA's shoulders sag as he let out a breath too, and turned. "Sorry, Hannibal. Didn't mean ta scare you. Thought you wasn't here."

"Did you even knock?" He set the gun on the ledge as he ran a hand through his hair, struggling to dissipate the adrenaline. There was no way in hell he'd be getting back to sleep tonight. "I didn't hear a thing."

"Yeah," BA answered sheepishly. "I knocked. You didn't answer."

Hannibal sighed. "Sorry." Shaking his head, he crossed the bare room to the kitchen, glancing at the clock on the wall as he passed. It was 3:00 in the morning, and BA was just about the last person he'd expected to see.

"What can I do for you?" he asked conversationally. Wide awake now, he was tempted to make a pot of coffee and simply start the day.

"Oh." BA lowered his head. "Nothing. Just… needed a place to be tonight. Lynch come knockin' around my motel earlier today. Needed a place to go. Place that's safe."

Hannibal grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap. He wasn't about to ask why BA hadn't determined he needed a place to crash until three a.m. Usually, the man was in bed by ten. "Well, you're welcome to stay," Hannibal offered. "The couch folds out."

"Yeah."

Something was wrong. Even if it hadn't been written all over his face, the fact he'd chosen to come here instead of simply finding another hotel room spoke volumes. Hannibal finished his glass, refilled it, and walked the few steps back to the living room. "What's on your mind, BA?"

BA hesitated for a long moment, then finally looked across at Hannibal. "Face told me about this woman who been followin' you. Say she's with the government or something."

Hannibal nodded once. "That's the working theory right now."

This time, BA's pause was much longer. He sat down on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward with hands folded loosely in front of him before continuing. "Whaddayou think she wants?"

"Haven't got a clue," Hannibal admitted with a smile.

The frown, the way BA tensed, and the sudden worry in his tone all carried the same message, and Hannibal heard it loud and clear. "I don't like no people workin' for the government pokin' around here, Hannibal," BA said firmly. "The Army's bad enough. We don't need the FBI on us too, tryin' to arrest us."

Refilling his glass again, Hannibal left the sink and leaned on the wall across from his unexpected guest. "I don't think she's FBI," he offered comfortingly.

But BA was not reassured. "Then whaddayou think?"

Hannibal hesitated. He hadn't fully thought this through yet, certainly not with enough clarity to share it with the team. But he would never get a better opportunity to work through it with an appropriate sounding board. He took a deep breath and glanced away before responding, "My gut says she's with the Agency."

It didn't come as a shock to BA. Probably, it wouldn't come as a shock to Face, either. Something about the way she carried herself, the lies, the false paper trail... it all screamed "undercover", even if it was inexplicably sloppy. The stranger thing was the fact that she was operating here, rather than abroad. Of course, it was entirely possible she was a third party, a mercenary hired to bring him in.

"The CIA don't work here in the States," BA said, confirming the one great flaw in the logic.

"Yeah," Hannibal agreed, a bit uncomfortably. "That's why I think it's something personal. Something they don't want other agencies involved in."

Hannibal remained quiet, waiting for BA to put the pieces together for himself. He knew full well how personal things were between Hannibal and the Agency. He'd been there for some of the finer moments of the partnership between the primitive CIA and the US Armed Forces.

"Aw, Hannibal…" Hannibal could tell how fully he understood by the dismay in his tone. "I don't wanna deal with those dudes."

Hannibal smiled faintly. "I can't confirm it yet," he admitted. "But my best guess is she's tying up loose ends."

As their eyes locked again, BA's face fell noticeably. "Loose ends?"

Hannibal shook his head as he looked away, trying to alleviate some of the tension. "She's not a threat, in and of herself. I still have to find out what she knows. And find out for sure who she is."

"The CIA shouldn't want nothin' with us, Hannibal," BA said softly. "We did for them what they wanted. And I sure don't want nothin' to do with them now."

Hannibal nodded slowly as he forced a smile. "I know how you feel."

BA looked away, and didn't speak.

Finally, after a long pause, Hannibal continued. "But until she proves otherwise -" His smile grew more genuine as he considered his words. "- she's just another mouse to toy with. Kind of like Lynch."

 **October, 1967**

 **VIETNAM**

"Alright, John, you win," Westman declared as he stepped off of the plane in the landing zone of the DaNang base.

"Terrific," Hannibal answered, lighting a cigar. "What's the prize?" He held out a hand as Westman came closer. "Nice to see you, by the way."

"Yeah, I'm sure it is, you crazy bastard," Westman chuckled, shaking his hand. On either side of him, younger soldiers saluted. Westman returned it almost casually. "At ease, men."

"Welcome to DaNang, General Westman, sir!"

Westman smiled, and Hannibal stood aside as he approached the young PFC who was standing "at ease" but with eyes still straight forward. He seemed startled when the general held out a hand. "You must be new, son. Where you from?"

The young man shook his hand with a tense smile. "Fort Selling, sir. I mean -" He shook his head as his face reddened. "Philidelphia. Sir."

Westman chuckled at the boy's embarrassment. "You got a name, son?"

"PFC Joshua Underhull, sir," the young soldier responded with more conviction, sure he wouldn't get this one wrong.

"Pleasure to meet you, Joshua," Westman answered warmly. "You take care out there now, hear?"

A ghost of a smile crossed the private's face, perhaps with relief that someone on this side of the ocean actually seemed to care whether or not he got out of this alive. "Yes, sir," he replied eagerly.

Hannibal grinned as he followed a few steps behind Westman, noting the stares and the salutes. Westman returned them with a casual sort of greeting from a man who knew, without doubt, he was in charge, but chose not to stand on formality. He'd always been very good at making the men around him feel supported and confident in his command. Finally, they made it to the general headquarters building, and Westman smiled and nodded at the men who opened the doors for them both.

"So what is it I've won?" Hannibal asked, matching Westman's pace, step for step, without even thinking.

"John, I am tired of making up excuses for you," Westman declared as they headed to his familiar office. "I'm tired of talking to captains who don't know what to do with you and sergeants who want nothing to do with you."

Hannibal frowned, not entirely sure where this conversation was headed and even less sure he liked it. "And how, exactly, does that qualify as winning, sir?"

Westman opened the door to a sterile office on his right and walked to the desk. "I'm authorizing your special unit."  
Hannibal stopped just inside the door, genuinely surprised, and stared for a moment at Westman before shutting it behind him.

"On one condition," Westman finished, pushing back his chair and sitting down heavily.

Wary of what might possibly be the catch in this otherwise perfect news, Hannibal crossed the room and sat down in the chair opposite his superior. "What condition?" he asked cautiously.

Westman cleared his throat, folded his hands, and stared Hannibal straight in the eye. "The only way to approve this was to sell it as a cooperative effort between the military and the Agency."

Hannibal very nearly groaned out loud.

"There's no room for vigilantes in the military, John; you know that," Westman continued quickly. "And that's how you and this proposed team are being viewed. You're lucky the Agency is obscure enough, and autonomous enough, to make your vigilantism seem like a good thing."

"I'm not a vigilante," Hannibal corrected with a scowl.

Westman shrugged. "Not my words," he clarified. "Fact is, you want to do something that's never been done. And I don't frankly _need_ you to do it."

"You might be surprised," Hannibal answered under his breath. Plenty of the problems he'd been asked to solve as an "advisor" would've been solved a lot quicker, easier, and more effectively if he'd had a coherent team to follow through on his recommendations.

"I will be downright honest with you, John," Westman said, leaning forward. He stared directly at Hannibal, without flinching. "You got one shot at this. You fuck up even once, make me handle even one complaint from any of your men, and I am stickin' your recon ass at a desk in Saigon. And if you don't like it, you can go ahead and retire, right the hell now."

Hannibal crossed his arms over his chest, studying Westman carefully. "Alright," he agreed hesitantly. "But I'd feel better with a little clearer definition of 'fuck up'. People do die out there, General. The fact that I don't make a habit of killing off my team doesn't make it impossible."

"Oh, that's not the kind of fuck up I'm talkin' about." Westman reclined comfortably again. "Recon men die. And I know your record; I ain't worried about dead soldiers."

Hannibal frowned, not sure he liked the conditions that had yet been unclarified. "What are you worried about?"

Westman studied him for a long moment, saying nothing. Finally, he stood and walked to the window. "I've had a hell of a time convincing the men upstairs that your unorthodox strategies are effective and necessary when even your men don't trust them." He glanced back, over his shoulder, and met Hannibal's stare. "There's more than a few guys who'd like to see you brought down a notch or two. Maybe even a rank or two."

Hannibal didn't flinch.

"I ain't sayin' I agree with them," Westman continued. "And I ain't sayin' that I don't. I ain't the one out there on the ground with my life in your hands. So you pick your men. And if they can't trust you…" Hannibal glanced back up as that statement hung in the air, and met the steady gaze of the four-star general. "Then I guess I can't either."

Hannibal stood still for a moment, then finally nodded. "Fair enough."

Westman reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded envelope and a pen. "You got three weeks to find these men," he said, walking to the desk. "Then you're on the clock."

Nodding slowly, Hannibal considered his options. "How much leeway do I have?"

Westman raised a brow. "Leeway?"

Hannibal chose his next words very carefully. "The kind of men I'm looking for might not come only from SOG."

With a half-laugh, half-snort, Westman shook his head. "John, if you can get them to stay as part of your team, I don't care if they're Army, Navy, CIDG, or purple with polka dots. The Agency has a broad range of influence and believe it or not, they're the ones pulling for you."

A deep, worried frown crossed Hannibal's face. "Why?" he demanded. "The last I heard from them was that asshole Grifton telling me I'd failed because the man they wanted me to bring back was dead when I got there."

"Apparently, his superiors felt differently." He turned and cast a look at Hannibal that was almost a glare. "You can have any man you want, any gun you want, any support you need. In return, they're gonna run your ass into the ground - you and these men you seem convinced will follow you."

"They?" Hannibal clarified with a frown.

Westman shook his head. He'd sold this very well, made it sound like a "win", but Hannibal knew when he was being baited. And anytime the Agency was involved, he could count on being baited.

"I told you, John," Westman finally said. "I don't have the final say in this."

The resignation in his tone made it clear he realized what Hannibal knew. Blowing smoke didn't change the core message. The Agency, for whatever reason, wanted Hannibal on permanent loan. They were prepared to pull strings in order to make it happen. The silence that lingered in the wake of that realization made it difficult to breathe. Very slowly, the implications sank in as Hannibal studied the serious expression of his senior officer and long-time friend.

"You don't have to do this," Westman said seriously, in a tone Hannibal hadn't heard him use in a very long while. It sounded almost like a plea, but one he knew would fall on deaf ears. "Frankly, I can't figure how you're intendin' on finding anybody crazy enough to do it with you. But it's your choice."

With a deep, frustrated sigh, Hannibal flexed his fingers and turned away, pacing absentmindedly to the window. He didn't answer, carefully considering the offer - and it was an offer, not an order. The Agency didn't run along military lines, didn't abide by military rules, didn't follow military chain of command. Working for them meant taking his military career in his own hands. Being on permanent assignment to them, at their beckon call for God-knows-what... it was a decidedly uncomfortable thought.

"If you do this, your days of week-long stand-down and R&R in Hawaii are over, John," Westman continued, footsteps falling heavy on the tile floor as he approached and stood at the opposite side of the window. "You want that, you take the desk job."

"I don't care about that," Hannibal answered immediately, eyes closing as he shook his head.

"I know," Westman replied. "But maybe you should."

"You're trying to talk me out of this?" Hannibal asked, brow raised as he glanced over in time to see Westman light a cigarette.

With a brief, humorless laugh, Westman shook his head. "I think you're a damn fool to even consider it," he said, offering the pack to Hannibal.

After a long pause, Hannibal accepted. Lighting the end of a cigarette, he took a long pull of blessed nicotine and closed his eyes again. In one breath, Westman offered absolute freedom to put a team together, the way he knew it would work. In the next, he said this team would be subjected to the Agency's jurisdiction. Although it was everything he'd hoped for, Hannibal wasn't sure he could live with the implications, much less that he could ask anyone else to.

"They're not the enemy, you know," Westman said quietly, staring out at the soldiers wandering around the base. "They're unorthodox, and they get the job done. Kind of like you. It could be a good match."

Hannibal took another long drag and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, Ross, spare me."

"You could do a lot of good," Westman continued, ignoring him. He sighed as he turned away, leaving Hannibal to stand alone in front of the rickety metal fan. "And I really am out of options. In order to make your point about needing a permanent team, I had to show that you were more valuable in the field than at a desk and that what we've been doing wasn't working. One of those was a hell of a lot easier to prove than the other."

Hannibal turned slowly and fixed Westman in a hard stare. "What are you saying?"

Sitting down at his desk again, Westman sighed heavily. "Take the offer, John. It's what you wanted, and you won't get another opportunity like this."

"An opportunity to work for the Agency," Hannibal clarified with more anger in his tone than he'd anticipated.

"An opportunity to continue working in the field," Westman corrected.

It took every ounce of Hannibal's not-inconsiderable self control to keep his anger in check at that. So this wasn't an offer at all; it was an ultimatum. He could work for the Agency or he could work in this building from now until the war's end, and beyond. War didn't allow for thoughts of what might happen next, and he'd never given much thought to what he would move on to once the cease fire was called in Vietnam. Frankly, most of his adult life had been spent in war, whether or not it was official: Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam... One thing was for damn sure, if he resigned himself to rear echelon, he would never see the front lines again. Maybe he was crazy, the way he knew Westman thought he was, but he'd spent so long on a diet of nicotine and adrenaline, he couldn't imagine life any other way. And he didn't want to.

"Are you assigning me to them?" he asked quietly, seriously. "Officially?"

Westman hesitated. "No," he finally replied, and Hannibal breathed a sigh of relief. "Think of it as a semi-permanent loan."

"But my orders continue to come through you," Hannibal clarified.

With a quiet chuckle, Westman shook his head. "I'm not discharging you. You're a colonel on active duty and frankly, when they can't use you, I will. But they will use you, and I don't want to hear any argument when they do."

Hannibal drew in a slow breath and nodded. The fact that his orders would still come through the military made the situation slightly more palatable, if not ideal. "How long do I have to think it over?" he asked dryly, still staring out at the heat wave shimmering off the jeeps outside.

"You have three weeks to put the team together," Westman said as comfortingly as he could manage. "If you don't meet the deadline, I'll have you reassigned."

"Without penalty?" Hannibal checked.

Westman didn't answer, and Hannibal glanced over to meet his serious stare. Finally, the general nodded his agreement. There were no more words to say, no more comfort or consideration and certainly no advice. Drawing in a deep breath of the heavy, humid air, Hannibal walked to the desk, crushed out the cigarette in the ashtray, and left the office silently, closing the door with a quiet click behind him.

 **1982**

Suzanne Davids was waiting right where Mr. Lee had told her to be, in the same disguise she'd worn to talk to him. It wasn't an unconvincing makeup job, but Hannibal knew his way around disguises - inside, outside, and upside down. He watched her pace on the pier, let her wait. The longer she waited, the more uncomfortable she would grow and the more off-balance she would be. That could only work to his benefit.

Finally, he checked his pistol one more time and casually walked out to meet her. No formalities, no games, no need to run her through fifteen different channels to weed out the potential danger. He knew she wasn't who she was pretending to be; there was no need to confirm it. More importantly, there was no reason to give her an inside look at how they normally did business.

"Miss Davids?"

In spite of the fact that she didn't look tremendously like the woman who'd come to meet him on the set, and in spite of the fact that she'd never given her real name, he knew exactly what to call her. There was no genuine question in his greeting.

She was clearly startled as she turned and quickly hid her discomfort. "Colonel Smith," she replied in a forced, though friendly, tone.

He smiled. "If you'd be so kind as to keep your hands where I can see them, I'd be much obliged."

She didn't raise her hands, but she made no move to conceal them, or to reach for anything. They were down by her sides, just the way they had been when he'd walked up to her in the first place. "Seems as though you have an unreliable secretary making out your appointment list," she said dryly.

He raised a brow as he approached slowly, casually, and leaned against the railing. "Unreliable?" he asked innocently.

"Last Thursday, coffee at the Delta Café." She cocked her head, studying him carefully. "Noon, if I remember correctly."

"Ah, yes." He turned to face the ocean, watching her out of the corner of his eye but appearing, for all intents and purposes, completely relaxed. "Sorry, I had something come up. I hope the flowers were at least some consolation."

She hesitated a moment before finally answering. "I'm more of an orchid kind of girl than your generic flower store teddy gram."

He smiled. "Duly noted."

Although he could feel her eyes on him - watching and reading - he didn't mind. He was reading her, too, and all of his surroundings at the same time. Casually "watching" the ocean provided an easy cover for keeping track of how many people were on the pier and which ones posed a potential threat. He also knew precisely how many strides it would take to get to her, or out of sight, or to his car.

Turning slowly, he rested an elbow on the railing. "Have you eaten?" he asked casually. "It's not exactly standard protocol, but I'm starving. And you need a place to take off that makeup." His smile broadened. "You're much prettier without it. And I know for a fact it's not comfortable."

She threw him a glare that almost made him chuckle, but quickly regained her control. "You have reservations somewhere?" she challenged.

"I do," he replied with a nod.

She laughed, but it held no humor. Clearly, she'd intended the question to be sarcastic. "Oh, of course you do. Why wouldn't you?"

He pointed across the boardwalk running down to the line of businesses along the beach. "Right there in," he checked his watch, "fifteen minutes."

She glared at him. "You planned this whole thing, didn't you? Right from the start."

It wasn't really a question requiring an answer, and he didn't offer one. Instead, he simply smiled. "Would you care to join me or shall I dine alone?"

 **1967**

Tem could tell Captain Rikland was caught off guard when he jumped off the helicopter with his pack on one shoulder and his rifle on the other. Although he hid it well, Rikland had clearly been expecting someone older and more battle scarred. He fought so hard against the urge to ask how old Tem was, it made the young sergeant wonder if he'd even gotten a file on the newest recruits to join camp A-255.

He wasn't the only one to offer a less-than-enthusiastic welcome. Though not deliberately unkind, the sergeant standing alongside Rikland was not as inclined to maintain political correctness.

"Take a wrong turn, schoolboy?" the sergeant mocked with a derisive snort of laughter.

Wisely maintaining his silence, Tem let the comment roll off his back without flinching. It wasn't the first time he'd heard something to that effect, and it wouldn't be the last. He let the men get their digs in, and responded with as few words as possible. All things considered, it wasn't half as bad as the hazing he'd survived on previous occasions. Not yet, anyway.

"Don't let it bother you," a voice from behind offered as the crowd wandered off to the mess tent. Turning, he saw a thin but muscular man with dark hair and dried mud halfway to his knees.

The first genuinely pleasant smile Tem had seen since arrival elicited a sigh of relief even as he instinctively and defensively responded, "I'm not bothered." Turning fully to face the man, Tem gave a practiced smile of his own, making certain it wouldn't appear too friendly but grateful nonetheless for the effort the stranger - Young, by his name tape - was showing.

"Foray is three weeks short," Young explained, ignoring Tem's dismissal. He stepped closer, hands in his pockets, and watched the soldiers disappear into the bunker. "The man you're replacing was a good friend of his. They came in together and would've gone out together."

Tem frowned, not only at the eerie thought of replacing a dead man like so many pieces on a chess board, but also at the fact that a man who had survived nearly to the end of his tour could suddenly not make it.

"What happened?" Tem asked, not entirely sure the question was appropriate but absolutely positive knowing things like that would keep him from putting his foot in his mouth without realizing it. And he certainly didn't want to get on Foray's bad side by insulting a dead friend.

"We get shelled pretty regularly here," Young explained with a detached tone. "He was walking from the guard tower when the first rounds came. Probably never even knew what hit him."

Tem looked away. "Sorry," he said, not sure how else to respond.

But Young only shrugged in a way that made Tem think there was no love lost between him and the dead teammate. Tact would've prohibited him from saying it even if the solidarity of the unit hadn't, but Young was clearly not as choked up about the whole matter as Foray. Shifting the conversation easily to lighter topics, the dark-haired sergeant finally extended a hand. "Devon Young," he offered. "You must be Templeton Peck."

Tem nodded as he engaged the handshake. "And here I was, thinking I got here before my paperwork."

Devon chuckled. "Why would you think that?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Tem cast another long look at the olive green structure where the soldiers had disappeared. "I don't think I was what Captain Rikland was expecting," he offered neutrally.

With a reassuring smile, Devon nodded. "Word to the wise about Rikland," he offered. "He's a Good-ol'-boy. Get on his good side and you'll be fine. But sometimes it can take him a while to warm up to you."

"I know the type," Tem answered gratefully. It was nice to know what he was up against.

"Come on," Devon offered, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes. "Let's get your stuff inside and I'll show you around."

Relaxed in the presence of someone who not only knew his way around but was willing to share his knowledge, Tem smiled and followed a step behind. He didn't know a thing about where Sergeant Devon Young had come from, how long he'd been here, what his specialties or ambitions were, or how trustworthy he was. But right now, he was the closest thing to a friend Tem had.


	6. Chapter Five

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 **1982**

"So," Hannibal started as he reclined comfortably at the table near the window, watching the sun set over the ocean. He kept one eye on the woman seated across from him as she sipped a glass of water. "Who is it, precisely, you're working for?"

She smiled politely at him. "You do get style points for getting straight to the point, Mr. Smith."

"I see no reason to waste your time and mine." Glancing up, he saw the waiter returning with the gin and tonic he'd ordered. "Besides, I'm genuinely curious. You've gone through an awful lot of trouble to make me believe you're trying to be friendly, to say nothing of the attempts to conceal your identity. It says a lot, Miss Davids."

The waiter brought the drink, and Hannibal thanked him before dismissing the attempt to take their dinner order. He was hungry; he hadn't lied about that. But until he knew who he was dining with, he had other things on his mind than the house special.

Suzanne leaned forward slightly as the waiter left them alone again, and reached into her purse for a cigarette. "I'm a private contractor," she finally offered, point blank. "I was hired to arrange a meeting."

Hannibal chuckled, but had a lighter ready by the time she had the cigarette to her lips. She stared at it for a moment as if it might bite her, then finally leaned forward to the flame. "Thank you."

"Let's get one thing straight," he said as he replaced his lighter in his pocket. "I have been very careful not to insult your intelligence thus far. Please don't insult mine."

She frowned. "It wasn't meant to be an insult," she answered smoothly. "My employer simply wants to discuss a few things with you. I was asked to arrange it."

Unimpressed by her increasingly careful wording, Hannibal sighed and glanced away. "You know who I am, and that means you should also know something about my current situation." He paused for a drink. "I don't ordinarily humor people who send beautiful women to lie and distract me into clandestine meetings. If you want my cooperation, you're going to have to be a little more specific."

She raised a brow at him. "You go through a whole lot of trouble to cover up that paranoia."

"I wouldn't go so far as to call it paranoia," he answered with a patronizing smile. "But I'm not stupid."

Comfortable, and perhaps even enjoying the bit of banter, she shrugged. "Semantics, Colonel."

"When it's the difference between freedom and a military prison," he pointed out, "it's more than just semantics."

She leaned back, tapping her manicured nails a bit anxiously on the white tablecloth. Although her tone remained calm and even, the fidgeting betrayed her uneasiness. "So you do take some things seriously," she noted.

He took a moment to evaluate her. Some odd, simmering emotion filtered through in the way she looked at him - anger and perhaps even fear. There was no hint of any genuine fascination - remnants of the flirting she'd used at their first meeting. In fact, although she was trying very hard to hide it, she seemed almost intimidated by him, as if whatever this "employer" had told her about him was frightening on a base level she refused to acknowledge.

More importantly, she'd more or less answered one of the lingering questions he'd had. But "private contractor" could mean just about anything from bounty hunter to mercenary, if it wasn't another outright lie. He wasn't entirely sure he trusted her word when she certainly hadn't been forthcoming thus far.

"Who hired you?" he demanded.

A small smile pulled at the corner of her lips. "Who do you think?"

Quickly tiring of this game, he stared back at her. "Private contractor or not, my gut still says you're working for a former employer of mine. And I don't mean the Army."

Neither surprised nor visibly relieved, she smiled a bit broader. "Your paranoia serves you well," she offered.

It wasn't an outright confirmation, but it was enough. He paused for a long moment, taking a drink and casting a quick glance around the restaurant again, marking his exits although he already knew where they all were. "Miss Davids, if you think there is a force on this earth that could entice me to sit down and have a friendly talk with the Agency, you have seriously overestimated my patience for bullshit."

She raised her brow at that, as if not quite sure how to take it. He stared back, unmoved and expressionless as the silence stretched along with the tension, to the point of snapping. Finally, she leaned forward, chin resting on her hand in an unconvincing display of relaxed confidence. She flipped her hair just slightly and took a drag from her cigarette, fake smile taunting him as she teased, "Now that's the kind of attitude that won't get you anywhere in life."

"I'm a fugitive," he replied flatly, with absolutely zero interest in the flirty game. "And even if I wasn't, the Agency and I didn't play well together even in the best of times. They almost cost me my military career several times over."

She smiled, and her tone was somehow both biting and polite. "Well, it's a good thing you don't have to worry about that anymore."

Impeccable control, ingrained by years as an officer, prevented him from any outward display of just how much those words stung. He glared daggers at her, but spoke with calm authority. "That's not the point," he clarified. "The point is, I have nothing to say to them."

She sighed, and sat up straight again, letting the light tone drop as she resumed a serious and authoritative stance. "Look, Smith, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way."

He raised a brow, amused by the empty threat. "Which way involves you going back and reporting to your superiors that I would rather swim naked with piranhas than join them for a meeting?"

"I'm afraid the piranhas are not an option." Her gaze remained steady as she shrugged dismissively. "If you refuse to come with me willingly, I'm just going to have to take you in."

He laughed. "You and what army?"

The sarcasm was lost on the young woman who clearly thought herself much more important, more skilled, and more unique than all those who had come before her to demand his surrender or at least his attention. "Don't underestimate me, Colonel Smith," she warned, with conviction.

Intrigued by the challenge and just how far she might take it, his smile broadened. "Don't underestimate _me_ , Miss Davids."

It seemed they had a standoff. He watched to see what she would do, acutely aware of his surroundings and any potential backup she may have nearby. But she only sighed, and dragged on her cigarette again.

"I'm prepared to negotiate," she offered, expertly advancing the conversation to the next stage, as if he'd already agreed to hear her out.

Shaking his head in disbelief at her complete inability to take a hint, he considered simply walking away. The only thing stopping him was curiosity, plain and simple. The Agency shouldn't want to talk to him about anything; they hadn't had any business in more than ten years. His nagging curiosity wouldn't let him get up and leave when he still didn't know what this was all about.

"Why don't you tell me _exactly_ what your boss wants," he offered, "and I'll consider negotiating a way for him to come to me."

"I'm afraid I don't have much more to tell you even if I wanted to." Her eyes locked on him, a glimmer of challenge. "Perhaps all you overestimated was my pay grade."

He nodded and stood slowly as the scales tipped in favor of leaving her to stew for a bit before asking the question again. "Well, in that case, I think we're probably done here."

Startled by the abrupt end to a conversation she'd undoubtedly thought was still well and truly under her control, she tensed noticeably, tracing manicured nails along the edge of her napkin. "Don't walk away from me, Colonel," she warned, not looking up at him. "You will regret it."

With a patient sigh and an equally condescending smile, he nodded his understanding. "I like you, Miss Davids. But not that much." He tossed a few bills on the table. "Tell the Agency I'm not interested, no way, no how, but I wish them luck in all their future endeavors."

"It doesn't work that way, Smith." He could hear the tone in her voice change from forced pleasantry to irritation as the wandering fingers tightened into a fist.

"You can also tell them," he continued smoothly, "that if they want to try again, they may get just a _little_ further if they send me somebody who's not just a go-fer. Because in spite of your nice legs and very attractive figure, if you can't tell me what I want to know, there's no way in hell I'm going anywhere with you."

Finally, she looked up at him, eyes blazing with indignant anger. "Do you tuck tail and run every time you don't get your questions answered right away?" she challenged. "Or is it just that you aren't used to not getting your way with women?"

He smiled, full of confidence. "Getting my way, Suzy?"

"It's Suzanne," she corrected with a tone that could've cut steel.

"I have no doubt I could 'get my way' with you," he patronized, ignoring the correction. "But the cost-benefit ratio simply isn't worth it."

He smiled wickedly as he reached out to touch her cheek, but she jerked away roughly and in a flash, her glass of water was in his face and all down the front of his shirt. She was on her feet, toe to toe with him, before he even had his eyes open again.

"Don't talk to me about cost-benefit ratio," she growled at him quietly, no more pretense to her open aggression. "The only reason you're still breathing is because it's not worth the paperwork it would cost to shoot you dead."

Paperwork ruled out a mercenary. Perhaps the "independent contractor" bit was another lie. Her emotional response betrayed more truth than the practiced one. But if she was on the CIA's payroll, why was she doing "field work" on American soil? It wasn't impossible - changing times, and all that - but it seemed somewhat contradictory to what little he knew of their more recent operations. Of course, if he was really honest, he had no idea what the Central Intelligence Agency had become in the years since Vietnam. He'd never cared to check into it.

As the water dripped down, he studied her with interest. Although fully aware he'd been asking for it, he was admittedly a bit startled by her aggression. That fear was still there, fueling the uneasy look in her eyes even as she stood her ground, staring him down. She had guts; he'd give her that. And he was both impressed by her ability to stand up to him and startled by the level of personal conviction in her words.

"I'm not entirely sure what I've done to deserve a bullet, Suzy," he prodded, then finished with a smile, "but I do like a girl who speaks her mind."

"You're a cold-blooded murderer," she snarled back, feeding him more information through her unbridled anger. "And as far as I'm concerned, you and your entire team can burn in hell."

He felt sure, by the fire in her eyes, she'd intended the reference to be clear. Unfortunately, he could think of at least a dozen instances that might fall under a civilian's definition of "cold-blooded murder" right off the top of his head and most of them had involved the Agency in some form or another. He was no closer to understanding why she hated and feared him than he'd been upon first seeing the look in her eyes.

Before he managed to find words, the waiter was standing beside him with an uncomfortable look on his face. "Is everything alright?"

The fact that they were both standing - clearly arguing - and that he was dripping water from his face seemed to answer that question in and of itself. As Suzanne pushed past them both, heading for the door, Hannibal turned and smiled at the man. "Just a small disagreement."

He reached into his jacket and pulled out another twenty dollar bill, tucking into the waiter's breast pocket. "Sorry for the commotion. Have a nice evening."

Without another word, he turned and headed for the door after the quickly retreating woman who clearly had no backup here. The more he replayed the accusation, the more he was driven to determine what, exactly, she'd heard. It wasn't just about his image - which, quite frankly, was the selling point of the infamous A-Team and the only way he was still eating on a semi-regular basis. Floating a rumor that he was a murderer could cause more problems than she'd probably considered. But more than that, the insult hit him at a deeply personal level he wasn't entirely sure she could understand. He'd done a lot of things in his military career, let alone his work for the Agency, and lived as a criminal ever since. But he was not, nor had he ever been a cold-blooded murderer.

"Hey!" he called out, bursting through the front doors of the restaurant.

Already storming towards the pier, she stopped and looked back. Her anger was obvious, from the glare in her eyes to the way she wobbled just a bit unsteadily on those high heels when the inertia from the furious retreat threatened to topple her off balance. With brows raised expectantly, she waited for a response to the accusation.

"Listen, lady." The teasing was gone from his tone, as was every ounce of patience. He stepped in closer and lowered his voice. "Whatever you think you know about me and my team, you heard one side of a very complicated story. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you've got a good reason for believing it, but let's get one thing straight. We were the best goddamn unit in Vietnam. We were soldiers. But we were _not_ murderers."

"Yeah?" The challenge in her tone was clear. Eyes narrowed in hate, she leaned in close. "Tell it to the families buried at Linh Hu Nao."

Hannibal's jaw clenched. But for a moment, he didn't trust himself to speak. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't make the anger in his chest overflow. Instead, he bit his tongue, and watched as she looked him up and down. Clearly, she was waiting for him to speak in his own defense. But he knew the limits of his control, and he knew that nothing rational would come out of his mouth in that moment.

"I'm not prepared to force you to come with me right now," she snapped at him. "But if I were you, I'd very carefully reconsider the option to cooperate. Because if you don't, next time we meet, it will not be so friendly."

He said nothing. Eyes cold and jaw screwed shut, he watched in silence as she turned away and headed for her car.

 **1967**

Sergeant Jake "Indigo" Redman was not hard to find. In fact, he was right where Hannibal had left him, at Dak To. Several months removed from the events of his last visit, the situation at the camp was a bit more controlled this time around, except that Hannibal happened to step off the chopper right in the middle of a Bright Light callout.

"Launch! Launch!" the radio operator called loudly into the open yard near the choppers. "Let's go!"

The pilots dropped the horseshoes they'd been pitching into the dirt and took off in a dead run toward their cockpits, jerking the rotor blade tie-downs free along the way. Hannibal caught sight of the man he was looking for as he bolted from the sandbagged barracks, readying his pack along the way. Still geared up with everything he owned in the pack on his back, Hannibal gave brief consideration of following immediately, then turned in the opposite direction, ducking into the door of the radio shack.

"Who is it?" he demanded, poking his head into the sandbagged room.

"RT Chile," the operator answered distractedly. If he thought Hannibal's presence there unusual, or even noticed he was not part of the normal team in the camp, he didn't let it show. Turning up the radio, he let Hannibal hear Covey's side of a tense conversation with a team on the ground.

"They're pinned down," he summarized quickly before Hannibal really had a chance to tune in. "Two men hit bad."

"Where's their nearest LZ?" Hannibal demanded.

"About a half mile away," the operator replied.

Too far, Hannibal knew immediately. Daylight was down to a few hours. There wasn't time to walk a half mile through the jungle while under fire, carrying two wounded men. "Radio anything more you hear," he ordered, turning away.

The Cobras were already in the air. Hannibal ran to catch the last Huey, noting with pleasure that it was the one Indigo had climbed aboard. With only brief greetings and waves, the all-clear was called and the chopper cranked.

Poking his head into the cockpit, Hannibal took a good look at the AC, then the peter pilot. He didn't know either, but prayed they were up to the task. "We'll need to go down on top of them!" he yelled as they lifted.

The AC did a double take at the unfamiliar face. "Who the hell are you?"

"Colonel Hannibal Smith," he yelled back, then continued his train of thought. "LZ is too far and they're pinned down. Drop us in and we'll pull them up."

Whatever anxiety the pilot might have felt about this plan paled in comparison to the thought of disobeying a colonel's order. He hesitated only a beat before offering a compliant, "Yes, sir!" and returning his attention to his maps.

The team in the back of the chopper responded similarly, immediately tying into rope Swiss seats, preparing to rappel directly into the problem. If any of them were intimidated, they didn't show it. They wouldn't, Hannibal knew. Not yet.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Indigo asked with a grin, casting a long look at Hannibal as he finished with the knots and clasps. "I didn't even see you come in."

"Came on the supply chopper," Hannibal explained, glancing briefly at his watch. "Just about five minutes ago."

Indigo laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. Finally finishing with his preparations, he offered a handshake and a friendly, "Good to see you, Colonel. Impeccable timing, as usual."

RT Chile was twenty-five miles away and three days into their recon mission. Hannibal listened to their situation report - as relayed from the FOB - without emotion. Their One-Two was no longer operating the radio. All except one of the men were hit now, and they wouldn't hold much longer.

Hovering above the firefight, Hannibal stood out on the skid, ready to repel. When he moved, he knew the rest of the men in the chopper would follow. But he didn't have a chance. The ground fire that suddenly sprayed up at them and their noisy aircraft forced the pilot to climb away.

"Go back!" Hannibal yelled at him, angrily. "Get your ass back down there!"

Startled, the AC stared at him. "Sir, we should wait for the –"

"I said go _back_ god damn it!" Hannibal yelled again. "That's an _order_!"

Although he hesitated, years of military training in the proper response to a senior officer's order kicked in with an abrupt, "Yes, sir!"

The Cobras and A-1s strafed the ground, drawing fire. The Bright Light Huey drew it, too, as Hannibal stepped back out on the skid. This time, he kicked off as soon as the chopper came to a hover – much to the surprise of the team inside, who followed seconds behind, struggling to keep up.

Hannibal hit the ground before the enemy's guns could lock on him, and disengaged. A quick glance around told him everything he needed to know. One-Zero Lieutenant Dessier - Hannibal knew him from a brief mission a few months ago - was dead. His chest was a mess of blood. An unwounded and unfamiliar American and three wounded Yards were holding off the enemy. One-One Sergeant Farris - also familiar to Hannibal - had the radio... and a mass of bloody, mangled flesh where his leg had been. Another Yard was also wounded badly.

Hannibal directed his team wordlessly, covering the perimeter around them as he and Indigo gave what little first aid they could to the two badly wounded soldiers. A shot of morphine and a wrap around the bloody mess was just enough to move them, and it only took a few seconds. Then they loaded the entire team of wounded men and the lifeless body of the young One-Zero into the extraction harnesses, told them to hang in there, and grabbed the radio to call up to the chopper. Heavy fire from the Cobras circling overhead protected the Huey, but it wouldn't last much longer. Grabbing hold of the last harness, Hannibal turned and yelled to Indigo over the noise of the gunfire.

"Go with them!" he ordered. "You're a medic; they'll need help back at the base!"

The young man's eyes flashed as he looked back. "Like hell, sir! You'll be needing help here!"

Hannibal grinned, but he didn't argue. Instead, he called up to the Huey, and stood back as the men were lifted through the trees. The rockets sailed through the sky only a few seconds later, removing any thought of sending down a second set of ropes. By now, the enemy knew exactly where the choppers would be hovering. The only way the team on the ground - unwounded, rested, and fully stocked on ammo, unlike the one they'd replaced - would get an extraction was to make it to that LZ, a half mile away. And that meant they'd be going _through_ a hundred well-armed enemy soldiers.


	7. Chapter Six

**CHAPTER SIX**

 **1982**

The police chief's office was neat and orderly. He smiled as Suzanne walked into the room, and rose to offer her a hand. "Miss Davids, very nice to meet you."

Suzanne took the offered hand with a confident smile and a firm handshake. "And you."

Gesturing to the chair across the desk from him, he paused before sitting back down to ask, "Can I get you a coffee?"

"No," she replied, gracefully taking the chair indicated and smoothing her skirt. "I'm fine, thanks."

As the balding, well-built man in the white shirt and tie sat back down, she crossed her legs elegantly, tactfully ignoring the way his gaze lingered on her blouse. She wasn't wearing anything the least bit revealing; she knew from experience that presentation stood for a lot when talking to men in authority.

"Thank you for taking the time to see me today," she said politely. "The FBI appreciates your willingness to cooperate with us."

"My pleasure," he answered with a nod, finally looking her in the eye. "What can I do for you?"

Noting and categorizing everything in his office, Suzanne confirmed what she already knew and added more information to her arsenal. The chief was an avid fisherman and hunter, with two grown children and a wife with whom he had a rocky relationship. Her picture was noticeably missing from his collection, but the ring was still on his finger.

Opening her briefcase, Suzanne withdrew the standard printout of a "wanted" poster and set it on the desk, facing Tomlin. "I don't want to waste your time so I'll get right to the point." Tapping one white-tipped nail on Smith's face, she watched Tomlin for a telltale response, but got nothing. "Are you familiar with this man?"

"Don't think so," Tomlin answered honestly, picking up the paper to study it more carefully. "Who is he?"

"Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith." She leaned back again and folded her hands loosely, elbows on the chair's armrests. "He's been wanted by the military for over ten years now and we have credible information that puts him in your jurisdiction."

Tomlin set the paper down and gave her a funny look. "Military more or less takes care of their own affairs," he said warily. "What's this got to do with me? Or you, for that matter."

She smiled politely. "We're looking for him on an unrelated matter," she explained. "I mention his military history only because it rather contributes to his... folk hero status."

"Folk hero, is he?" Tomlin repeated, chuckling at her choice of words. "Well, folk hero or not, I certainly won't stand in your way, Miss Davids. You catch him, he's yours."

Suzanne smiled. Nothing in her expression or manner showed any uncertainty or annoyance at the chief's attempt to dismiss her request. "No, Chief Tomlin, you won't stand in my way," she replied curtly. "In fact, I'm expecting a great deal of cooperation and assistance."

He raised a brow and shook his head slightly, as if confused. "I'm not sure I understand what you're asking."

"Cooperation," she said again, carefully enunciating. "As in, acting together for a common goal or benefit. And the way I see it, Chief, we could both benefit here."

He studied her warily, saying nothing.

"Bringing in a dangerous murderer will look nice on your record," she explained, "especially when the time comes to find a new police commissioner. And I would get my man. It's win-win."

She pulled out her cigarettes and lit one as she waited for the chief's reply with infinite patience. Finally, he gave her a polite smile. "I would love to see you catch this man, Miss Davids," he patronized. "But as far as devoting this department's time and resources to that goal, I'm afraid I'm going to need a little more information."

Dragging deep and exhaling, Suzanne's smile grew wider as her eyes grew harder. "He's a murderer and dangerous fugitive who is operating in your jurisdiction and risking the lives of those people who you have sworn to protect and serve," she declared, leaving off the part about Smith being an insulting, infuriating, sexist, cocky bastard. That was no concern of the police chief's. "What more information do you need?"

Brow furrowed, Tomlin continued a bit more defensively. "Miss Davids, it is my duty to protect and serve this _entire_ city, and to allocate resources accordingly." He shifted uncomfortably, but the look in his eyes made it clear that he very much perceived he was still in charge of his conversation. "Depending on what you're asking for, I might be able to free up a few men. But I'm not about to put this entire department into a frenzy over some guy your 'credible information' says is probably in my city."

"I've seen the photos of what Smith can do," she said icily. There was no smile as she took another drag and leaned forward, tapping her cigarette against the ashtray on his desk. "Trust me, your entire city would be served to use every resource you could beg, borrow or steal to get him behind bars forever."

He chuckled quietly, dismissively. "I'm afraid that's not your call, Miss Davids."

She finished her cigarette in uncomfortable silence, then crushed it out with a feral smile. "These may change your mind, Chief," she said as she reached into her briefcase. She pulled out a folder and laid it open on his desk. Inside the folder was a copy of a tax return and some photos. "I am by no means a tax attorney, but I'm pretty sure that your bass boat and all of the 'hanky panky' that you keep at your mistress' place won't qualify as a business expense. Oh, and Chief? Doing that -" she indicated the lewd photo of Tomlin with said mistress in an alleyway beside a dive bar "-in public can get you arrested."

She glanced briefly at another photo of his heavyset, expensively-adorned wife before looking back at him, waiting. His eyes were the size of saucers, jaw dropped.

"This is what I found with just a couple hours of free time on my hands," she said lightly, leaning back again with hands in her lap. "Imagine what the full resources of the FBI could uncover. We may even be able to figure out how you afford to keep a boat and a mistress on your salary."

She gave him a moment to adjust to his new reality. He stared for a long moment, then looked back up at her. "I... I don't..." He swallowed. "I can't just..."

"Sure you can," she replied with a patient nod.

"Are you... blackmailing me?" he demanded, still struggling words.

"Got it in one." Standing up in a fluid motion, she stared hard at the man on the other side of the desk. "And before you say something stupid like, 'Does your boss know about these strong-arm tactics?' let me make something very clear to you." Leaning on the desk, she gathered together the evidence and tucked it all neatly back into her bag. "I have the utmost respect for the chain of command, the legal process, and the way things are _supposed_ to work. But I won't hesitate to take down you or anyone who stands between me and Smith. Consider that before you attempt to play hardball with me."

With a final, pleasant smile, Suzanne draped her bag over her shoulder, turned, and exited the office without another word. She'd give him the night to think about it, but she was quite certain she would have no further trouble procuring all the help she needed from the Chief of Police.

 **1967**

"You alright?" Hannibal asked, evaluating the wide-eyed expression of the young man sitting beside him in the chopper.

The man nodded, but he wasn't alright. Hannibal knew that look of shock and fear; the young sergeant had lost his nerve. Of course, running headlong into an entire company of NVA would do that to most men. Two of the Yards hadn't even been willing to follow until they realized there was simply no other option. Their hesitation said a lot, given the nerve that most of those men showed in the heat of battle. In retrospect, Hannibal probably had asked more than what any of them were prepared to give. But the alternative - waiting and hoping they might get an opportunity for another extraction through the trees - was ludicrous. He'd known how it would play out from the moment he'd given the drop order to the pilot.

Besides, the fact of the matter was, he hadn't lost a single man. They'd startled the enemy by running right through the center of the fray. Hannibal had probably killed a dozen with his own gun; God knew how many the rest of the team had dropped in addition to the friendly fire the VC let loose on each other. Although there were a few injuries, everyone was alive, including those from RT Chile who almost certainly would've died without such a daring extraction.

Hannibal sighed as he put his head back against the inside wall of the noisy Huey, eyes closed. His arm - wrapped and taped in crude field-medic fashion -was still bleeding where a bullet had gone clean through. It hadn't lodged, and in fact had barely even slowed him. A few centimeters to the right, and it probably would've shattered the bone. Then, he would've had a problem. As it was, he had only a minor inconvenience, easily solved with painkillers now and antibiotics later.

"You really are crazy, you know that?" the voice on his other side called over the loud rattle.

He opened one eye and glanced at Indigo. "Bet you wish you'd got on that chopper when I told you to," he replied.

But to his surprise, Indigo smiled. "Hell no, sir," he answered. "I fuckin' live for that shit."

Through the morphine haze, Hannibal chuckled. "Good to know."

It was only a few minutes more before the chopper touched down, neatly depositing them back at the camp. A quick check by the camp commander - who was more than a little surprised to find that Hannibal had already inserted himself into field operations when his arrival hadn't been expected for several more hours - confirmed that they were equipped to take care of all of the injuries. RT Chile had been moved on to a field hospital, but the sprained ankle, cuts and bruises, minor shrapnel damage, and clean bullet wound didn't require more than some general first aid.

"So what are you doing here, anyway?" Indigo asked as he unwrapped the field bandages around Hannibal's arm so he could suture the wound. "Do you often show up and insert yourself randomly into team extractions?"

Eyes closed and feeling a bit lightheaded from the painkillers, Hannibal shook his head. "No," he replied. "But I wanted to see if you still had your nerve."

Indigo raised a brow, glancing up and making contact with Hannibal's lazy gaze for only a moment before turning his attention back to the wound. "My nerve?"

Taking a few moments to put his thoughts together, Hannibal did his best to stay relaxed while Indigo sewed up his arm. The morphine made it easy, but trying to concentrate on coherent words heightened his awareness. "Most men have some aversion to trying to outrun and outgun death," he said quietly. "But last time I was here, you seemed to almost enjoy it."

Indigo laughed. "Well, I guess I ain't most men." He worked quickly and efficiently, the way Hannibal would've expected him to, cleaning and closing the wound. "The way I see it, whole reason I'm here is to take out as many of those blood-sucking bastards as I can. Put a good two or three hundred of them in a mile radius? Well, hell, that's just more for me to shoot at."

The man was rambling. Hannibal's awareness of the words ebbed and faded. The more he experienced morphine, the less he cared for the stupefied, drunk feeling it left him with. But at least he hardly felt what Indigo was doing to his arm. He wasn't even aware the wound-tending had finished until he returned to lucidity just as the bandages were being taped down.

"So tell me," Indigo continued, taking the suture kit and the bloody field dressing to the trash. He deposited it before turning back and studying Hannibal with intensity. "What are you doing here, really?"

Hannibal smiled and took a long look at his surroundings, confirming that they were truly alone before he continued with a bit more of a slur than he'd intended.

"I have a proposition for you."

 **1982**

Grandiose events – such as they were – always posed a certain amount of inherent danger. Not that the newly released "It Came From the Murky Swamp" was likely to be a blockbuster hit, or that there would be a hell of a lot of people at the premier. The potential risk, while there, was negligible and frankly worth it to Hannibal.

Acting had always been one of those fun and mindless things - it came naturally - that was a great way to pass the time. But life as a fugitive made it a far more restricted business for him than most. An actor who couldn't show his face was not in terribly high demand. The only way he was able to dabble in show business at all was to maintain a constant stream of effort, meeting new producers and directors of low budget B movies. That was the main reason he was here. It was the reason these premiers - unless he had reason to suspect they were more dangerous than normal - were worth the risk.

He spotted this evening's threat a mile away. She had been watching him with fleeting glances out of the corner of her eye since arriving. Her moderately-revealing evening dress, shoulders covered only by the shawl draped over her shoulders for warmth, was meant to help keep attention away from her makeup and wig. It wasn't that she was _bad_ at disguises. But he expected her to use them after the charade with Mr. Lee, to say nothing of her earlier impersonations. He knew the moment her eyes were on him, and it made her incredibly easy to feel out. The smile and the smell of danger made her even easier to talk to.

"Hi." He offered a hand, and a smile, not hesitating in the least. "John Smith. I don't think we've met."

For her part, Suzanne didn't miss a beat. She had a flirty smile ready for him and, he would bet, a cover story. Suzy liked to be prepared and this time, she was undoubtedly ready to carry through on her threat to bring him in - handcuffed if necessary.

He was loving this.

"No, we haven't." Her voice was pitched several octaves lower than normal and she had a very plausible Georgian accent. "I'm sure I would have remembered someone like you."

There was a slight pause as she checked for a gun under the guise of appraising him. He smiled knowingly, approving of her careful efforts. Too bad for her, the gun was well-concealed. There would be no telltale lumps or breaks in the lines of his tux jacket.

Meeting his eyes again with just the right amount of interest and invitation, she continued quietly. "I'm Kristen Lansfield. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He nodded, smiling broadly and entirely comfortable. "So, Ms. Lansfield, what is your interest in the movie industry? I thought I knew all the beautiful women who would be here tonight, and it seems I missed the most obvious. Are you an actress?"

She gave him a flirtatious, soft laugh. "My, my, aren't you just the most charming man?"

Her hand rested just briefly on his upper arm - a modest but inviting touch. He smiled back. "I try."

"Actually, I'm a film critic for the Atlanta Times. The paper decided to spring for a junket to Hollywood for me. This is the first of five premiers I will be lucky enough to attend."

Her eyes were on his, trying to keep him engaged in the conversation and oblivious to the fact that she was holding her little purse just a bit too close and too tight. If he had to guess, that was where she'd stashed the gun. There sure as hell wasn't any place to hide it under that dress.

"And what does a handsome gentleman like yourself do for a living?"

"I'm an actor," he declared. "The star of this picture, actually."

He beamed. It was laughable really, considering he had no lines and screen time only beneath a bulky costume. But it was always so much fun to see the way people responded to his pride in meaningless roles.

Her gaze turned just a fraction more serious. "Then you must be the man who played 'Gatorrat'," she responded breathlessly, gesturing nearby to the life-size cutout of Hollywood's latest rat-alligator mutant from the Louisiana swamp. "Because as with all horror classics, it's the antihero who is truly the star."

Choking back the laugh that came reflexively, he only smiled. She was playing to his vanity, and doing it with flare.

"Heroes are a dime a dozen," she cooed, laying it on a bit too thick. "But to be a good villain... that takes a special man."

He nodded in agreement. "Right you are, Ms. Lansfield. Though I like to think of him as sort of a tragic figure rather than strictly an antihero." He paused reflectively, enjoying the moment of banter with an amusement that made it unimportant whether she thought he was serious or not. "He's a victim of society, and all that is wrong in the world."

She was smiling again and nodding enthusiastically. "Oh, I completely agree," she bubbled. "Much like Frankenstein, or the Blood Sucking Brain Eaters from Planet K7. Or even the iconic Godzilla." She leaned in a little closer. "A truly developed creature is so hard to find in films nowadays."

Her fingers were lightly resting on his forearm, eyes on his as she stared with intense infatuation, as though he was the most talented man in the room. It was a fine line to walk, just the right amount of flattery and professional interest. If he'd been genuinely so full of himself as to think he _was_ the star of this movie - and she had no way of knowing that wasn't the case - it would've been a flawless performance on her part. Clearly, she was no rookie to this part of her job. She also knew her 'Creature Feature' movies; Blood Sucking Brain Eaters from Planet K7 was a rarely heard-of film, but a true cult classic.

"You must have fascinating insight into both the film and the genre," she said softly.

"You said you're a reporter?" he asked, but quickly corrected. "Film critic, excuse me."

"Yes," she nodded enthusiastically. "For the Atlanta Times."

He smiled. "I'd be happy to give you a more detailed analysis after the movie. Say, over a glass of wine? I know a nice little bar just up the street; it's very cozy."

The coy smile, the slight drop of her head, the way she looked up at him through her lashes, but still managed a look full of promise and just a hint of hesitation... It was good. Very good, in fact. She was probably thinking she had him right where she wanted him.

"I really shouldn't, but..." But she would. He could see it in her eyes as she gave his arm a brief squeeze. "Passing up on such a fascinating opportunity would be positively criminal."

Of course it would.

Leading her into the theatre when she was hanging on his arm was remarkably easy. He stepped into the row first, letting her take the aisle. He'd already located the exits; he knew exactly how many steps it would take him to get there. But for now, he let her feel comfortable through a few more moments of small talk, watching her convincing "I'm relaxed" routine.

She wasn't relaxed and he knew it. Finally, he leaned closer to her and whispered softly, "You seem nervous," just to see if it would, in fact, unnerve her.

Only a hint of shock made it to her expression before she caught herself. Leaning towards him, just close enough to brush her hair against his shoulder, she offered a perfectly practiced soft, shy look. "I'm sorry. It's just that I've never had the pleasure of watching a movie while sitting next to the film's star."

He smiled as she dropped her eyes for a second, then looked back up like she was making a confession. Her hand rested lightly on his - not too forward, but a clear signal she was still interested. It also gave her the added bonus of knowing where his hand was. Not a bad plan. Of course, he could get the drop just as easily with one hand if he wanted to. In fact, his other hand was already moving to his waist, carefully, as he distracted her with the movement of his fingers over the back of her wrist.

"Is that the only reason?" he asked, his voice low and full of insinuation.

There was a flirtatious implication and a little bit of caution in her soft reply, "Should I have another?" Her smile was back to alluring. She was far better at that than she was at "shy."

He smiled back. "Yes, you should. It's not nice to crash somebody's party, you know. And an armed and dangerous fugitive might not take too kindly to it."

The pistol was under her ribs before she could gasp, low enough that even someone passing through the aisle right beside them wouldn't see it. His hand tightened slightly over hers - not hurting, just holding - as he pressed close to her ear.

"Make a sound any louder than a whisper, Ms. Davids, and I may just add a felony to my already impressive rap sheet."

Fighting the natural instinct to pull away, the coy "Kristen" faded. Shock turned to anger. Her smile slid away and every muscle tensed. But she very wisely chose stay still as the lights dimmed and the opening credits rolled over the top of a deafeningly loud music score. It was a couple seconds before she pulled it together enough to figure out how she was going to deal with this curve ball.

She struggled to keep her voice calm, trying to make him – or maybe herself – feel like she still maintained control of the situation. "It may not be nice," she said, the accent instantly gone from her voice, "but it will be effective."

He laughed quietly, lightly, as though she'd just told an inside joke to which he didn't want to attract unnecessary attention.

Irritated by his dismissal, she growled. "Besides, _you're_ the one who raised the stakes, Smith," she continued angrily. "And nice doesn't come into play when I have orders to bring in a killer."

Ignoring the bait, he moved his hand off of hers and inconspicuously grabbed her purse, dropping it onto the floor at their feet. "I assume you're in contact with the four men who are posing as ushers and have been watching us since we walked in," he said lightly. "Now you're going to be a good little girl and tell them - and anyone else you have ready to move in - to stand down."

She was so mad, he could practically see steam rising off of her. He could see just how badly she wanted to go on the attack, but knew how stupid it would be. So instead, she drew in a calming breath, fists clenching even harder.

"Unless you want me to yell across the theatre," she growled through a clenched jaw, "you're going to have to either let me get close enough to speak to one of them or let me use a hand signal. That's assuming you're brave enough to let me move my hands."

She was right to ask about moving her hands. He had no way to trust that she would signal them to stand down and not move in. Of course, the latter would be suicide if she truly believed he was a killer. For once, her gross misconception of what he was capable of worked in his favor. Still, she was young and stupid, and a bit unpredictable.

"How 'bout you and I just take a walk," he instructed, standing slowly and guiding her alongside. "Real nice and slow, over to that exit right over there."

Careful to make every movement look casual, he slipped a hand underneath her shawl and set it on her back. The touch was too intimate for "just meeting," but it certainly didn't look like force. It was impossible to tell in the dim light that he was holding a gun, even if she could feel it flat against her spine. With his free hand he gestured for her to go first. "After you, Suzy."

She had no choice but to move. Placing an entirely fake smile on her lips, she moved forward, hissing quietly to him, "It's Suzanne."

No doubt she was rapidly running though scenarios in her mind, trying to find some way out of the rather sticky situation. But she was smart enough to accept the fact that alerting her escorts to her situation would only lead to a lot of guns being pulled in a room full of unsuspecting, innocent civilians.

They made it through the doors leading out of the theatre and straight outside, emerging around the side of the building and near his car. How convenient! He turned as soon as the heavy metal emergency exit door closed and shoved her back against the wall, the gun under her chin.

"I have to admit, Suzy," he said lightly, "I'm impressed with your persistence."

She growled audibly this time, in mounting frustration. "It's Suzanne, you patronizing bastard!"

With his free hand, he frisked her just in case she had managed to hide a gun somewhere. His hand was quick and efficient, checking everywhere he could while keeping the gun steady. He wasn't shy, but he didn't linger in any one place; he'd clearly done this before and he knew if she was good, she would have her backup weapon somewhere like the inside of her thigh. He checked there, nudging her feet apart with one of his own, and paused as his hand found a leather sheath. With an amused smile, he withdrew the knife, forced in the process to slide his hand up far higher than what could be considered modest. Lifting the blade between them, he ticked his tongue against his teeth.

"Now, this just isn't nice," he chastised. "What were you planning to do with this? Filet me?"

She snarled at him, baring her teeth in the most threatening look she could manage. "That's the _least_ of what I'd like to do to you."

He grinned, and tapped the blade on her collarbone - an almost-casual threat. "Sometime when my schedule is free, we'll have to get together and explore the possibilities."

A tiny shiver ran through her, followed by the quick intake of breath as the blade brushed her neck. To his surprise, her eyes flashed with a look so familiar and so intense it made him pause for a moment to drink it in, like a kindred spirit who'd run smack into their soul mate. Deep and suppressed, beneath the anger and indignation at the way she was being treated and the fear of her current helplessness, a flash of excitement made her draw in a sharp breath. Pheromones, hot and involuntary, sheeted off of her instantly, and his amused smile grew. Well, that was unexpected.

"As long as we're exploring them from different sides of metal bars," she finally answered with a tone that was low and serious, but a little too breathy. Her eyes flicked to the knife, then back to him.

"It's too bad I have to run," he said with genuine regret. "It might be fun to see how good you are with this thing."

Her eyes narrowed into slits. "Oh, I am very, very good with it," she snapped back. Clearly, she meant it as a threat, but it rang a bit hollow.

Still smiling, he leaned in closer to whisper in her ear. "So am I."

He pulled away suddenly, taking the knife and the gun with him a few steps back. Then, with a wave, he turned and bolted for the parking lot. It would take her a minute to mobilize the men inside. By then, he'd already be driving away. Of course, he expected her to follow. She'd damn well better follow. It just wouldn't be any fun if she gave up that easily.


	8. Chapter Seven

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 **1967**

The One-Zeroes flocked to the chopper as it touched down, greeting the returning team with beers for the Americans and cans of Coke for the Yards. Hannibal watched them silently, from a distance. His eyes had already found his target and he was both surprised and pleased to see him still in one piece - just the way the camp commander had said. He'd been "promoted" to One-Zero two drops ago and was still going strong.

"Which one is he?" Indigo asked, pulling on his cigarette.

Standing near the radio room, Hannibal chewed on his cigar and watched the jovial welcome back with interest. The mission, whatever it was, had been successful with no injuries to speak of. That was reason enough for any One-Zero to celebrate.

"Black guy, second from the right," Hannibal answered lightly.

"Hmm," Indigo acknowledged, not overly impressed.

It was true that Lieutenant Pete "Breaker" Jones wasn't much to look at. He was at least a foot shorter than all of the men surrounding him, shockingly thin, and bald - though Hannibal suspected that was by choice and for the sheer simplicity of it. He was a practical man with very little patience for bullshit. That fact alone made Hannibal think twice about coming to him with even the suggestion of Agency work, which was the very definition of bullshit, nine times out of ten. But, simply put, he needed men. And he'd long considered Breaker one of those men.

He must have felt Hannibal's stare. Being out in the jungle heightened one's awareness of things like that, and Breaker was still primed. Only a few steps from the chopper, the younger soldier was looking straight at him. Clapping the shoulder of his One-One in parting, the two exchanged smiles before Breaker headed for Hannibal. With a broad smile, he trudged closer, still carrying a full pack of gear on his back and holding a beer and a cigarette in one hand while his CAR-15 hung from the other.

"Hey, Colonel, good to see you." He put the cigarette between his lips, juggled the beer into his other hand, and reached out. Hannibal shook his hand. "Still not dead yet?"

A smile crept across Hannibal's face that matched the younger man's. "I hear you made One-Zero."

"I did. Crazy shit, huh?" He turned to Indigo and offered a hand, exchanging introductions quickly before looking back at Hannibal and gesturing toward the team room. "Come on, walk with me. I gotta get this pack off before it breaks my back."

Hannibal followed in stride, waiting for the question to come. But Breaker rambled quite meaninglessly, pausing occasionally to chat and wave with other camp soldiers, until he'd dropped his pack, finished his cigarette and his beer, dumped a bottle of water on his head to cool off, and changed his clothes. Then, finally, he sat down on the edge of his cot and gave Hannibal his undivided attention as he asked it: "So what are you here for?"

Casting a quick glance around the room, Hannibal confirmed that several of the men just back from recon had already laid down to sleep. He wasn't surprised, but it made this a less-than-ideal place to talk. Nodding towards the door, Hannibal took a step forward. "Let's take a walk," he offered.

"A walk?" Breaker laughed. "Man, I'm just back from five days straight of walking."

Hannibal said nothing, only stared steadily at him to see if that was an actual refusal or a request. Breaker's curiosity peaked as he realized the serious tone being set, and he eyed Hannibal suspiciously as he rose and led the way out. They were only a few steps away from the barracks before he felt his pockets and realized he'd left his cigarettes behind. But before he had a chance to go back, Indigo held out his pack.

"Here," he offered, probably suspecting the man was going to need more than one.

With an uneasy laugh, Breaker took the pack and tucked one behind his ear, lighting another before handing the rest back. "What's this about?" he asked as they wandered toward the camp perimeter.

"Do you remember that team we talked about?" Hannibal finally asked. "The one I needed to form?"

This conversation would be at once more delicate and much simpler than the one he'd had with Indigo. Breaker had friends who had been caught in the Agency crossfire. He was not likely to welcome their employment offer with enthusiasm, or even the ambiguous apathy Indigo had offered. But Breaker was the one who'd originally voiced the idea of this "special team". He'd given Hannibal's initial proposal substance, convinced him other people could see it too, and thought it could work. In fact, had Breaker not been out on recon, he would've been the first stop. The promise had long ago been made - though jokingly, over beers - that if Hannibal ever did get permission to operate a Recon Team, he'd request Breaker from the start.

Sure enough, the Lieutenant knew instantly where the conversation was going. Eyes widening in surprise, he looked back and forth between Hannibal and Indigo before laughing. "Seriously? Congratulations, man!"

Hannibal looked away. "It's not exactly what we envisioned," he admitted. "But it will be a permanent team, and we will be sent out to advise and fix problems at various camps."

Breaker must have realized the ambiguity in that statement was very intentional. Perhaps more importantly, it was the "not exactly what we envisioned" that caught his attention. Nodding slowly, he dragged off his cigarette. "So what's the catch?" he finally asked. "Since you're not half as excited as I thought you'd be."

"It's a joint operation," Hannibal explained carefully. He knew the point had been made even before he finished, the moment he saw Breaker's face fall. "With the Agency."

Breaker was already shaking his head. "Aw, hell no," he muttered. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Wish I was," Hannibal answered dryly. "Unfortunately, agreeing to work with them was the only way to get the team approved."  
" _With_ them?" Breaker clarified. "Or _for_ them?"

Hannibal rolled his shoulders, shifting uncomfortably. "It's a fine line."

"No, it's a simple question," Breaker answered firmly. "I've heard about the Phoenix Program. I want no part of that shit."

"I don't blame you," Hannibal replied with a slow, serious nod.

"And yet you still came," Breaker said, staring pointedly at Hannibal, waiting for an explanation.

With a sigh, Hannibal glanced around the perimeter of the camp, then back at Breaker. "My orders come through military channels," he replied. "I have no great love for the Agency, but they provide intelligence to the military that shapes the -"

"Save it," Breaker interrupted, shaking his head. He looked away as Hannibal fell silent, drawing again on his cigarette.

"I'm not here to twist your arm, Breaker," Hannibal replied. "I'm not here to condone the Phoenix Program, and I'm not here to recruit you for it."

"But they've recruited you?" Breaker challenged.

Hannibal answered carefully. "My orders come through General Westman."

"Through," Breaker clarified, "but not from."

"You could say no," Indigo interrupted, perhaps sensing the increase in tension as Hannibal ground his teeth. He absolutely hated defending the actions of an organization he did not agree with most of the time. But this was more than a matter of personal pride. The more he tried to justify his decision to go along with the picture Westman had painted, the more he realized it didn't much matter what they asked of him. He could justify damn near anything when he weighed it against the alternative.

Breaker was silent for a long moment, shaking his head. "What, exactly, are you asking?" he finally asked in a slow, evenly measured tone.

"I am forming a team that Westman will continue to use in the way he's been using me from the start - an advisory team." He paused to let the good news sink in before reiterating the bad. "On occasion, we may - we will - be asked to advise the Agency."

"Advisory team," Breaker repeated, for clarification.

"We'll be sent where we're needed," Hannibal explained. "In the past, that's meant recon, Bright Light, reinforcing A-camps, and occasional covert ops. Now that the Agency has taken an interest, it may mean running errands for them as well."

Breaker visibly bristled. "Errands?"

Hannibal almost smiled, in spite of himself. He had to hand it to the kid, he was exceptionally good at picking out those key terms and phrases that bullshit tended to hide behind.

"Simple fact of the matter is," Hannibal clarified, "I don't know what they'll ask us to do. But I do know it is a _joint_ operation. We're not going to work for the Agency. They're asking for military support and the military is offering us."

Breaker tried to pull on his cigarette again, found it had gone out, and dropped it on the ground before lighting the one he'd put on standby. After a long pause, he took a deep breath and looked Hannibal straight in the eye. "Can you guarantee they will not 'ask' us to torture civilians?"

Hannibal's jaw tightened. "I can guarantee that I will not torture civilians," he said firmly. "And I would not expect you to."

Breaker processed slowly, nodding as he stared into the distance with a faraway look.

"Out here, you have mandatory stand down," Hannibal continued, using the opportunity. "Rotation back to the States, R&R... You may or may not get those things as part of this team. And you probably won't be going home. Not dead or alive."

Breaker studied him for a moment. Then he looked away again.

"Why me?" he finally asked, with a new seriousness in his tone. It was the same tone Indigo had used right before he'd requested twenty-four hours to think about it before giving any kind of commitment. "You came a long way to ask me this. Clearly, you expect me to say yes."

"Yeah," Hannibal answered with a nod and a sad sort of smile. "I do."

"Why?" Breaker challenged. "You and I never even crossed the wire together. All we did was share a few beers. You got no reason to think I'm a good fit with this team of yours."

"You're still alive," Hannibal pointed out. "You made it to One-Zero. Your CO says you're one of the best. Is he wrong?"

"No," Breaker answered with confidence. "But you don't know that for yourself." He tipped his head, studying Hannibal curiously. "You've scared a lot of guys half to death. They won't say it, but it's pretty obvious when they don't even want to come within five hundred yards of you. And then you get the bad-asses who think surviving a drop with you will put a big gold star on their foreheads, give them some kind of fucked up 'street credit' out here. How come you're so sure I'm not one of them?"

Hannibal smiled subtly, calmly. "I'm a good judge of character."

"I didn't come here to die," Breaker said firmly.

"I didn't come here to ask you to," Hannibal retorted.

"But you came here to ask me to do something that's probably going to get me killed."

Hannibal didn't flinch. "You're a One-Zero in a recon unit," he replied. "You're already doing something that's going to get you killed."

Breaker stared at him for a long moment, then looked away and took a long drink from the can in his hand. Then, finally, he nodded. "Alright," he agreed with surprising resolve, shocking both Hannibal and Indigo with his sudden acceptance. "When do we start?"

 **1982**

Face checked his reflection in the mirror once more, straightening his tie, and flicked a glance towards the clock on the wall before grabbing his keys. Rush hour should be winding down, and he had more than enough time to get out to Pasadena for the evening's dinner reservation. It was an achievement, considering how busy he'd been today with stocking groceries and necessities into his latest "rental property". Who would have thought people could spend so many weeks away on vacation? He was doing them a favor, really. Without his presence to stir the air, the dust that would have accumulated might have made the eighteenth-story luxury apartment simply untenable.

He was almost to the door when the phone rang, and he eyed it for a long moment. Should he answer it? Nobody was likely to contact him here and if they did, it wasn't going to be a quick chat. Wincing at the possibility that it really was for him, and well aware of the potential on further consideration of Hannibal's recent pyromania, he returned to the phone, picking it up with another glance at the clock.

"Hello?" he asked, wary of the caller before he even heard Hannibal's enthusiastic greeting.

"Hey, Face, how's it going?"

Face almost groaned at the misleading, overly casual pleasantry that had lost its charm years ago. He knew what that tone meant. Whatever plans he'd had for the evening - Charlene - may as well be thrown out the window now. "I was a lot better before you called," he admitted dryly.

Hannibal chuckled. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in a little evening car chase."

"Not in the slightest," he replied with deep conviction and utter certainty. Not that he thought it would make the slightest difference. All things considered, a car chase was easier and less time consuming than a jail break, and Hannibal wouldn't be calling for help unless that possibility loomed on the horizon. Somehow, the satisfaction of "I told you so" afforded very little consolation.

"Aw, come on, Lieutenant," Hannibal prodded with entirely too much anticipation. He sounded like a kid on Christmas morning. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Tucked safely under my pillow where it belongs," Face answered curtly. "I take it walking away didn't go so well?"

It wasn't really a question, and he didn't expect an answer. Hannibal didn't humor him with one. Through the static on the radio phone, Face heard the sound of tires squealing and cringed.

"How long will it take you to get to West Hollywood?" Hannibal asked, confirming his fears.

Face almost laughed, in spite of the fact the question wasn't the least bit funny. It was Friday night. The city roads were going to be packed. He'd picked a hell of a time - and place! - for a car chase.

"At least twenty minutes," Face replied optimistically, massaging the bridge of his nose as he mapped out his route. He needed to get off this phone. No sense in standing here and talking when he could be on his way. "I'll call you back."

Not waiting for a reply, Face hung up. Keys already in hand, he grabbed his gun and was out the door within a few seconds.

 **1982**

Hannibal had expected Suzanne to give chase, but he hadn't expected she'd be quite so good at it. It was easy enough to maneuver the cop cars into wrecks but, surprisingly, a bit harder to ditch her. Way ahead of the remaining police cruisers, she remained too close to shake off.

He grinned as he adjusted the rearview mirror, then peeled around the corner, off to the side. If he wanted any chance of getting out of this in one piece, he had to stay off the main roads. On a Friday night, they would be packed. The freeways wouldn't necessarily be much better. But he knew the back roads of this city - which ones dead ended into nowhere, which ones went through - like the back of his hand. It was a necessity for survival, and he'd learned it well.

Watching her in the mirror as much as the road, he had to admit to a certain admiration for her confidence, let alone persistence. The woman definitely knew how to handle herself. Leading her through the back roads, in and out of turns that no ordinary citizen should know about, she kept up with him when even the natives couldn't. He was going to have to get creative if he wanted to get rid of her…

Around another corner, and down the alley, he just barely had enough time to hit his brakes as he suddenly found himself blocked in - not by any wrong turn, but by four cop cars angled in his direction. He screeched to a stop when a quick check of his surroundings couldn't give him a clear path past them, or through them. He had room to go around them, but without a distraction, that was almost certain to get his car – if not himself– shot up.

As if on cue, the phone in the car rang, only once before he answered it. "Hello?"

"Alright," Face's welcome voice greeted him. "Where exactly are you?"

Hannibal considered his response only briefly. "Right now, I am staring down the barrels of ten 9-mm pistols wielded by cops in four squad cars on –" he did a quick check, glancing around "- 3rd and Harvard. Or somewhere around there." His tone was completely casual in spite of the situation he described. "You don't by any chance have a weapon with you, do you? A big one, I mean. Big enough to make a distraction."

"Are you kidding?" Face sounded irritated. "Where would I have it, in my back pocket? You didn't exactly give me time to prepare for this!"

Hannibal could hear the tires squeal through the phone. "Well, I need a distraction," he replied, leaving it to Face's creative discretion with a shrug. "I've got enough space to get around them. But I don't want them shooting out my tires when I try."

"Throw your keys out of the car and come out slowly with your hands up!" the officer in front shouted.

Hannibal grinned when Face didn't offer any brilliant suggestions. "Of course the better diversion might also involve taking out their vehicles."

"What?" Face cried. "How the hell am I supposed to create a diversion big enough to attract the attention of ten cops when I have no time to -"

"Oh, I'm sure you can think of something, Face," Hannibal interrupted. "They're facing south, by the way. If you come west up 3rd, you'll run _right_ into them."

Face growled audibly as he caught the implication. "You're _really_ going to owe me for this."

"Thanks, Face," Hannibal replied with a grin. "I knew I could count on you."

Hannibal cut the call connection just as the cop yelled across the open space at him. "I repeat, throw your keys out of the car and come out slowly with your hands up!"

On the other end of the street, Face's car appeared. Hannibal had been waiting for it, but the LAPD was oblivious. He readied - not turning the wheels yet, not giving them any indication he was about to move. But he was ready when Face gunned it and laid on the horn. Hannibal's tires screeched on the pavement as the cops spun around in surprise and barely managed to scatter out of the way. Amused, he wondered why the hell it took them so long to figure out he wasn't stopping.

Face bailed out of the car, rolling on the pavement, before it hit. Hannibal pulled up right beside him as he staggered to his feet. The police were shooting at the empty car as it plowed in between their cruisers and scattered them every which way. As soon as Face was in the passenger seat, before the door was even closed, Hannibal was off again. The cars that were just arriving for backup swerved out of the way as he plowed through and weaved around them.

"I hope you're happy," Face snapped as he pulled the seatbelt across his chest. "And I hope you know I will _never_ do that for you again."

"Oh, you were wanting a new car anyways, Lieutenant," Hannibal replied with a shrug. "You've been talking about it for months."

"And that's the _only_ reason I did it this time!" Face was glaring daggers at him. "And even so, that's not the way I would've liked to part with that one."

"Relax, Face." He watched in the rear view mirror, only mildly surprised that Suzanne hadn't given up the chase. "Think of it as motivation, a step in the right direction."

Face just glared, then turned to look over the seat at their pursuer. "You sure know how to pick 'em, Hannibal. You ever think of just ending a night with some roses?"

Hannibal grinned as he whipped around the corner and narrowly avoided the oncoming cars as he headed back in the general direction of Hollywood. She stayed on his tail, and his smile fell as he watched her in the mirror. "Hey, uh, Face? Do you suppose you might be able to do anything to deter our friend back there?"

Still irritated, Face slouched in his seat and scowled out the windshield. "I thought you were enjoying this."

"Oh, I am. But right about now I figure she's got to be calling for backup. And if she gets it -" He grinned.  
"- we don't have another car to use as a distraction."

"Not going to call BA into this mess?" Face asked bitterly.

Hannibal didn't answer.

Pushing himself up in the seat again, Face rolled the window down and turned backward. He aimed the gun down at her tires, waiting to fire until Hannibal swerved to give him a clear shot. In spite of his patience, the first few shots accomplished nothing until Hannibal slowed to let her close the distance. Finally, bracing himself against the dash, Face managed to blow her front passenger tire. As she swerved to a reluctant and abrupt stop, right into one of the cars parked on the road, Face turned around again and closed the window.

"Now." Face tucked the gun away again and frowned deeply as he raked his fingers through his hair and tried to straighten out his sleeves. Rolling out of a moving vehicle did no favors to his ensemble. "If you can kindly drop me at 2305 Southeast Merlin St., I have a date to keep."

Hannibal smiled, and watched the road in front of him as he slowed to a normal, unremarkable pace. Showing up at the movie premier had style. He could only imagine what her next move would be.


	9. Chapter Eight

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

 **1982**

Suzanne Davids was through being humiliated by Hannibal Smith. He had made her look like an amateur and a fool for the last time. Furthermore, as far as Suzanne was concerned, the police in this city were utterly, phenomenally incompetent. The whole of the English language lacked the vocabulary to express just how Suzanne felt about their contribution to her failure. She failed to understand, much less sympathize, with their complete and total inability to corner off one fleeing fugitive in an old Cadillac. It wasn't like he'd been on a motorcycle, able to maneuver into places they couldn't go. There was no excuse, and the police chief hadn't even tried to give her one. He simply apologized and asked what was next.

Anger, adrenaline, and cold, hard fury pounded in her veins as she left the police station. How many man hours had she spent setting up that sting that Hannibal had simply waltzed out of? Six days of planning, hours of drills, and hundreds of dollars in pay for the police backup had all amounted to one big embarrassment, a complete failure that ultimately rested on her head although it was not her fault. She would've gotten him, come hell or high water, if she'd only had competent backup.

She left the police station still seething, heels clacking on the pavement as she stormed across the parking lot. How in the hell had he pulled it off? A scream of frustration rose up in her throat, and she choked it back as she ripped her purse open and dug for her keys. He had known from the start it was her; he must have. It was all just a game to him, some sort of sick form of amusement. The car chase was just for fun. The guns, the CIA, the bodies of those villagers, her... all one big joke to him. How could anyone in their right mind find enjoyment in running for their lives?

Unlocking the car and tossing her purse on the passenger seat, she didn't even bother to pull her seatbelt across before shoving the key angrily into the ignition. Then, for just a second, she closed her eyes, the images from his file playing over her memories. She needed to get her shit together. No matter what he thought, how funny he thought this was, she _was_ going to haul him in. His crimes had gone unpunished for too damn long. Smith needed to be stopped, and he needed to answer for what he'd done. Setting her jaw and staring at the street he disappeared down, she floored the gas pedal. She would be the person who finally brought in Hannibal Smith, even if it killed her.

Tires squealed as she pulled away, nearly clipping the back fender of the Crown Victoria on the end of the long row of police cruisers. She was almost to the freeway when a sound from the backseat drew her gaze to the rearview mirror. At the very same instant, she both felt the barrel of a pistol pressed to the soft point behind her ear and heard the hammer cock back.

"Hello Suzy."

The jolt that ran down her spine made every muscle in her body tense and nearly sent her careening off the side of the curved onramp. What the ever-loving hell was that voice doing in her car? It took several seconds, and a long, wide-eyed stare into the mirror at the blue eyes looking back at her, to fully grasp the reality of the frankly unbelievable situation. He was supposed to be on the road, finding a place to hole up and hide from the (incompetent) cops. No way in hell was he supposed to be tucked into the backseat of her car - parked out behind the police station, no less! - waiting to ambush her.

"Why don't you drive us down towards Long Beach?" His voice was cool and calm, and it clearly wasn't a question. "We need a quiet place to talk."

Senses heightened by the threat of a gun to her head, she kept her hands on the wheel and didn't answer. Non-compliance wasn't an option, but at the same time she realized if he wanted to kill her, he would've already done it. He was certainly more than capable, and she was in no position to put up a fight. For that matter, she had no reason to believe he wouldn't pull the trigger just as soon as they stopped. But what choice did she have? She was on the freeway now and while crashing the car would have been the obvious choice if her life was truly in danger, if all he wanted to do was talk, wasn't that precisely what she wanted him to do anyway?

"Make sure you keep both hands on the steering wheel," he ordered coolly, as if placing an order at a fast food restaurant. "Just like they taught you in driver's training."

She fought the urge to pull away from the overwhelmingly present weapon against her pressure point. "Do you always need a gun to make people listen to you?"

Serious, but not sounding overly concerned, he didn't rise to the bait. "You were the one who set the mood for our relationship, Suzy."

"It's Suzanne!" she shot back with a glare before instantly cursing herself. He was so damn good at that, it sickened her. He could ignore the efforts to rile him, and yet stick that knife in precisely the right spot - with a word, a look, a tone of voice - to make her react without a second's thought. Struggling to regain some dignity, she finished, "And I'm never sure what mood to set when dealing with a sanctimonious murder."

He didn't answer. In fact, he didn't speak again except to guide her on one freeway or the next in the blissfully-light traffic. The longer the silence stretched, the more uncomfortable she grew. Her anger was receding, leaving her with the uncomfortable fact that she was the hostage of a very dangerous man. It took some effort to maintain an air of calm as he directed her off the freeway and down a long road that dead ended at a wide open, shaded park. There was a lighthouse on the far side of it, and just beyond that, a sharp drop to the vast expanse of the ocean.

"Alright, Suzy," he directed calmly. "Very slowly now, I want you to hand me your gun, then get out of the car. Keep your hands where I can see them."

Damn him. She could get into a lot of trouble for losing her sidearm, quite apart from the fact she hated giving it up. But she still had a back up piece tucked into the small of her back, hidden by her blazer, and the alternative was to simply shoot him dead where he stood. That might make her feel better, but it certainly wouldn't count as a success.

Hesitantly, she removed the pistol from her shoulder holster with just her index finger and thumb and handed it to him. Then, determined not to let him see her apprehension, she carefully opened the car door and stood up, looking around. At least he'd taken her somewhere public, and fairly exposed. There was a row of houses across the street, and she had plenty of room in the otherwise empty, dirt parking lot to put up a fight. It was entirely possible someone would hear her if she screamed. Of course, it was also entirely possible he could shoot her if she tried, but the atmosphere of this park was not foreboding or threatening. It was almost as though he'd gone looking for neutral territory.

As he emerged from the back seat, she took a long moment to survey him. Comfortably dressed in jeans and a button-down, cotton shirt, he seemed very much at ease but for the dark and serious shadow in his eyes. "I'll let you keep the backup weapon," he said condescendingly as he shut the rear door of the car. "I don't expect you to need it. Shall we sit?"

As he gestured to the cement picnic table positioned alongside the nearest of the sprawling trees, her eyes swept the empty park. With a detached coolness, she noted it was quite beautiful, just the right amount of nature and nurture in its manicured lawn and awkwardly gnarled trees.

Her pace was slow as she took the first step towards that table, trying to draw him in close. He obliged her within a few strides and she saw the opportunity for what it was - quite possibly the last one she'd have. Gauging his distance, she whipped around, grabbed his wrist above the gun, and stepped aside. Quick and well-practiced, the move gave him no chance to react before she pressed her entire body weight against his awkwardly twisted wrist until she felt his grip break. He let her have the gun, and she raised it immediately to his chest, only to realize there was another weapon against her temple.

Blinking in shock, she replayed the whole second-long sequence in slow motion and discovered his free hand had somehow managed to grab her backup weapon. With no time for hesitation or a fumbling grip, he must have been completely confident it would be against the small of her back even though there was no way he could've possibly seen it. Stunned and stalemated, she stood with the barrel of his weapon to his chest while he held hers to her head with calm, even clarity in his emotionless expression.

For a moment, they stared at each other before he continued ever-so-politely, "About that friendly conversation."

She couldn't shoot him, and certainly not in their current position. Frankly, between the two of them, he had far less to risk by pulling the trigger than she. Still reeling from the confusion of how she'd ended up in this predicament, she tried to recall if she'd heard his weapon cock in readiness and realized that considering his speed, it really didn't matter.

"You're not fooling anyone with that gun, Suzy," he said simply, condescendingly.

"It's Suzanne," she replied automatically. "For God's sake is that so hard to remember?"

"Unless you intend to shoot me," he continued without making a beat, "why don't we both put the weapons away?"

"You first," she growled.

He smiled politely. "My gun's in your hand."

She stared at him for a long moment, caught off guard and needing to think of an answer to that. "Alright, funny guy," she tried with as much authority as she could muster. "I'll use little words so you can understand. If you want to talk, then put the gun down. Even you should be able to follow that."

Without hesitation, he took a step back and set the gun on the hood of the car, out of her reach. No matter how hard she tried, Suzanne was sure some of the shock made it to her expression. Of all the things she had expected to try, putting down the gun wasn't one of them. Of course, it was no secret that he had a backup, and he must have been able to guess that shooting him really wouldn't get her any closer to her mission objective. Quickly recovering her composure, she ran through her options as he leaned back on the car, arms crossed loosely over his chest, waiting for her move.

Finally, she took a step back, holding the gun on him for a moment. Not flinching, he stared her in the eye. What was he thinking, she wondered as she stared back. Was he daring her to take the shot? Did he think she wouldn't do it if she had to look him in the eye? Did he think he'd be the first to find out she would?

He didn't move until she finally set the weapon on the hood of the car, just at the edge of her reach. Then he stood up straight again, gestured in invitation for her to take her own weapon back, replaced his own in the holster under his arm, and walked beside her to the picnic table. His pace was so casual and relaxed, he might have been heading out for a Sunday afternoon stroll.

"We need to clear something up," he began coolly. "For the record."

Not sure what to expect, she waited in silence as he turned and sat down at the picnic table. Leaving her to stand over him but clearly no less in control for his lower position, he cast a quick, observant glance up and down the row of houses across the street.

"I don't know if you _are_ CIA," he continued, "or if you've just been hired by them. I don't even know if you're clear on that yourself. But I do know the Agency is involved here, and that's a problem because you seem to have made this very personal."

She glared back at him, insulted by the assumption that she couldn't maintain her professionalism in the face of her own feelings of disgust for his crimes. But just this once, she managed to keep her indignant anger bridled and stood stock still, waiting for him to finish.

"I was working for the Agency before you were potty trained," he said, finally, cutting his gaze away from the houses and up to her. "The kind of work I did for them is the kind you couldn't pay me enough to do now. When I say I don't want to talk to them, it's not a clever way of avoiding the question. It's precisely what I mean."

"That's not my problem," she replied simply. "I'm not under orders to bring you in ifyou want to come - only to bring you in."

"Why?" he asked, staring at her.

How did he manage to make her feel so small when she was the one looming over him?

Not receiving an answer, he leaned back with both elbows on the tabletop behind him and looked away again. "Think about it, Ms. Davids," he encouraged, with a definite warning suppressed under the surface layer of his otherwise casual tone. "We both know how much the Agency does and doesn't tell its operatives. And we both know you've already said too much for me to believe you don't know what this is about."

"Then what are you asking?" she demanded.

"I'm asking how much you know," he clarified, "so that I can do you the courtesy of filling in the blanks for you."

She blinked, startled, and wasn't surprised when he looked directly at her before she had a chance to cover up the reaction.

"As I said," he finished, "we both know how much the Agency does and doesn't tell its operatives. And quite frankly, I have nothing to hide."

 **1967**

In all the years Hannibal had known General Ross Westman, he'd never seen him look as tired as when he closed the folder on his desk and glanced up just as Hannibal walked through the door. Three weeks had come and gone, and he'd been expecting the call to DaNang. He hadn't expected to find the general looking so exhausted, with dark rings under his eyes and lines of worry creasing his forehead.

"What's wrong?" Hannibal asked, ignoring formalities as he closed the door behind him.

Thankfully, Westman replied in kind, neither hesitating nor embellishing his response with pleasantries. "I've seen the report from the Agency," he said flatly. "The job they need done."

It wasn't surprising. Hannibal hadn't expected it to take long for them to start making demands. He'd also suspected there was a particular reason why they were suddenly "on his side". They needed him for something, and the possibilities, from one extreme to the other, had already crossed his mind. The only thing that shocked him was the fact that they seemingly hadn't occurred to Westman. The man knew damn near everything that went on in this war; how could he be caught off guard by the dirty tricks of the Agency? How could he not expect them?

"And?" Hannibal finally prodded when the details did not seem to be forthcoming.

Westman leaned forward on his desk, hands folded and head down. After a long pause, he looked up again and locked stares with Hannibal. "I can't order you to do this," he said frankly.

"So don't," Hannibal answered simply. "It'll save me from having to disobey your orders if it's that bad."

Westman sat back again. "No, you don't understand," he corrected. "It's not that I won't do it. I _can't_."

Hannibal frowned deeply. "What do you mean?" he asked, although he already had a good idea. The military chain of command, the giving and receiving of orders, and ultimate responsibility were all familiar to Hannibal as an officer. The only reason Westman _couldn't_ give an order was if that order would violate terms of warfare. In that case, Hannibal would be obliged to refuse, and the responsibility at the court martial would fall back on the commanding officer.

But those situations were very rare. In fact, Hannibal had violated any number of laws and treaties and protocols under Westman's order. His entire military career had been built on it, in fact. He'd spearheaded campaigns that were legally questionable, with the surety that Westman would have his back if they got caught. And he always had. Hannibal trusted the man. More importantly than the reassurance of not getting caught, he trusted that Westman would never give him orders that were _ethically_ questionable, even if they blurred the lines on legality.

"I cannot order you to do this," Westman said again, clearly and carefully. "Frankly, it would be best if I didn't know anything about it."

Hannibal blinked, stunned. It took a few moments for those words to properly sink in. "You breached the borders of a country we weren't supposed to set foot in, dropped us in the jungle, and made nice with President Kennedy when he found out about it," Hannibal reminded patiently. "So nice, in fact, you started a whole new division of the army and didn't even bat an eyelash at the possible ramifications of our operations in Laos and Cambodia. And you're telling me there's something you'd rather not know about?"

Westman laughed nervously, his throat obviously tight as his head shook slowly. "Don't do this to me, John," he pleaded.

"What the hell do you want me to do?" he demanded, anger creeping into his tone. "You're surprised that the Agency plays dirty? That they want to burn me? _You're_ the one who put _me_ in this position, General, not the other way around."

Westman nodded slowly and drew in a deep breath, reclining again. "I know," he finally said, regaining that impeccable calm Hannibal had always admired in times of stress, when his orders were a matter of life and death. He trusted this man - had always trusted him - and it was shockingly uncomfortable to see his confidence falter.

"This does change the situation significantly," Westman said evenly.

"How so?" Hannibal demanded, tightening his grip around the anger that still threatened his tone.

"If you want the report, it's on my desk. And if you and your team successfully follow through -" He paused for a deep sigh and looked Hannibal straight in the eye again. "- then I'll cover you to the absolute best of my ability."

"Cover me," Hannibal repeated warily. "Cover me how, exactly?"

"By making you and your team too invaluable to burn," Westman answered firmly.

Confused and once again stunned, Hannibal shook his head. He didn't even want to know what that meant, or how Westman expected to pull it off. Frankly, it didn't matter all that much. Even without having seen the briefing, Hannibal already knew he wouldn't go through with this assignment simply by Westman's response to it. How was there even a consideration that something would need covering up?

"They have a problem," Westman continued, sensing his resolve. "It's a legitimate problem - a big problem - and they need someone to fix it."

"But fixing it means what?" Hannibal interjected, cutting to the chase. "Violating terms of warfare? Committing a war crime? Treason, maybe?"

"Maybe," Westman answered ambiguously.

Shaking his head, Hannibal stood. "So you can't give an official order and they can say I went rogue," he realized. "And assuming I would even consider doing this, your plan is to... what? Sweep it under the rug when it's over? Testify at my court martial?"

"No," Westman said dryly, meeting his gaze again. "There'd never be a court martial. Too risky. The scandal, if the general public ever found out - my God."

Hannibal laughed cynically. "Is this the part where you fill me with confidence?" he snapped. "Convince me that I'm the one to solve this big problem they have?"

Westman shook his head, but didn't speak as he rose and headed for the small table in the corner, fixing a strong drink.

"Why are you even telling me this?" Hannibal demanded. This was the single most peculiar conversation he'd ever had with a senior officer. General Westman, in particular, knew better than to show this kind of indecisiveness to men under his command. It was overwhelming testimony to the seriousness of the situation.

"You know at least as well as I do how the Agency works," Hannibal continued. "Did you really think they were trying to do either one of us a favor when they supported the formation of my team? They've got plenty of people willing to do dirty work. They wanted me; it's not because they were being nice."

Westman was quiet for a moment, keeping his back to Hannibal as he took a long drink. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low and subdued. "Frankly," he admitted, "I thought it would end the same no matter what you chose."

Jaw tight, Hannibal took a few steps forward. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm out of options, John." He looked up and caught Hannibal's gaze as he came closer. "Petitioning alongside the Agency was a last ditch effort but you're right, I knew full well it would only be a matter of time before they wanted you to do something you simply would not do. I know about the Phoenix Project. I know what they're using our men for and I knew you'd refuse. When you did, I'd still have to find a place for you, no different than it would've been if you'd never agreed to work with them."

Hannibal grit his teeth. "So what changed?" he demanded. "Reassign me and be done with it. Why are we having this discussion?"

Those words were a sledgehammer to the chest, and they settled like lead weight in the pit of his stomach. The silence that followed, as Westman finished his drink and poured another, seemed to stretch for ages. Finally, the general turned and pushed his shoulders back with perfect posture and new resolve.

"I read the file, Hannibal," he said seriously.

Hannibal's eyes narrowed at the use of his name and the haunted look in the general's eyes.

"I didn't ask them for it and they didn't have to give it to me," he continued. "I already told them where I expected your career to go, as a warning, because I didn't want it to come as a shock when you refused an unjustified kill order and I guess I'd hoped you would have a few months before it came to that."

"What's your point?" Hannibal demanded coolly.

"They gave me the order because they knew you'd refuse it," Westman replied.

"And they thought I wouldn't if it came from you?" Hannibal challenged in disbelief.

"Oh, I think they know better than that." Westman paused for another drink. "I think they wanted me to convince you - knowing I couldn't order you - to go through with it."

Hannibal's frown deepened. "And is that what you're doing?" he asked carefully. "Convincing me?"

Taking his drink with him, Westman walked to the window. In the long silence that followed, he stared out. Hannibal eyed the bottle of scotch on the table, but thought better of it. He needed a clear head right now. Hands empty, he joined Westman by the window.

"It's a tough call," Westman finally said, breaking the long stretch of uneasy silence.

Hannibal knew what he meant. Tough calls were the difference between life and death. The higher up the chain of command, the more people lived or died by those decisions. Tough calls were not black and white; they were a question of the greater good or, more appropriately, the lesser evil. They were judged by their own subclass of moral and ethical resolutions, and there was never a "right thing to do." Closing his eyes, Hannibal took a deep breath and tried to find a neutral place in his mind, without emotions or a firmly ingrained moral compass clouding his judgment.

"Would you do it?" Hannibal asked seriously, staring out the window into the organized chaos of several hundred soldiers on a hot, humid afternoon in Vietnam. There was only one way to evaluate a tough call, and every officer knew it: Never order a man to do something you wouldn't do yourself. Hannibal didn't need to know what the Agency's motives were, or even what they wanted him to do. He didn't need to be convinced. All he needed to know was if Westman, who'd seen the file and knew what was at stake, would go through with the illegal, immoral, and undoubtedly dangerous assignment if it had come to him instead of Hannibal.

"I don't know," Westman answered honestly, taking another long drink. "I might." He paused to shake his head with a tight, bitterly cold laugh. "Might put a hole in my head afterwards, but..."

Hannibal's jaw twitched in an effort to hide his alarm. That was certainly something he'd never heard a senior officer say. Whatever this was, it had Westman well and truly shaken up.

"John, I ain't you," the general finally finished with a sigh. "I can't do what you do out there, and I can't live with some of the shit you _have_ to do. I don't know if I could live with myself, doing what needs to be done. But I ain't you."

Hannibal nodded slowly, processing those words and suddenly wishing he'd decided to pour that drink. "And if I take this assignment," he said, "I play their game with their people and never tell another living soul who I kill or how or why... then what? How exactly do you plan to cover for me?"

Westman had an answer ready for that question. "Before the shit hits the fan, I pull your unit into strictly military operations and make you a goddamn hero," he said with conviction. "I may not be able to use the press, but if I can improve your image among the higher ranking officers, they won't be so willing to turn you over. At that point, I can petition that you'll be under no obligation to the Agency from here on out unless I say so because you're too valuable to us."

Hannibal stared, both stunned and wary. It sounded a lot like bargaining, just the kind of convincing the Agency would have expected him to offer. Frankly, Hannibal had nothing to say in response. Everything he wanted, handed over on a silver platter - but what was the cost?

"But in order to do that," he said quietly, "in order to make that petition, you need me to do this assignment."

Westman drew in a deep breath, and nodded. "I need a case in point to prove that military officers cannot be expected to carry out Agency orders. That, along with polishing your reputation, should be enough to seal the deal."

"And you can't get that from the Phoenix Project?" Hannibal challenged.

With a deep, frustrated sigh, Westman turned and headed back to his desk. "The Agency may be pulling our men for that, but they're not _assigning_ them. It's different."

Sitting down again at his desk, Westman turned the chair to face Hannibal, who remained at the window. "I ain't telling you what to do," he concluded simply. "You make this call for yourself and for your men. All I'm saying is..." He paused and shook his head with a deep breath. "I'll back you up either way."

As he finished, Westman took one final drink, draining the last inch and a half of liquor in the glass all at once.

"Fine," Hannibal finally agreed, grabbing the folder off of the desk. On his way to the door, he finished under his breath, "Let's go see what terms of the Geneva Convention we want broken today."


	10. Chapter Nine

**CHAPTER NINE**

 **November 11, 1967**

Hannibal tossed the "Top Secret" folder in his hand onto the table in the center of the room for whoever wanted it as he walked around to the far side, set down the tin cup full of coffee, and grabbed a cigar out of his pocket. His team of Indigo and Breaker from SOG, Glaze and Erickson from camps in II Corps and I Corps respectively, and a highly recommended and well-known Marine sniper named Bob were all present, half dressed, and tired. None of them were strangers - to Hannibal or each other - but he still didn't have a clue what to expect from them. This was not at all how he'd planned for their first act of solid "team building" to go.

Indigo grumbled a sarcastic, "Morning, sunshine," in his direction, but he ignored the greeting as he lit his cigar. Joseph Erickson, only just beginning to adjust to the crazy schedule of recon as opposed to the fairly basic patrols in the area of A-Camp 109, silently took up residence in the corner. Eyes still blurry with sleep, the darkly tanned and impressively bulky man leaned forward, head in his hands, rifle across his lap. Adam "Glaze" Voucher, several years senior of everyone else in the room except Hannibal, was standing, dressed but for his shirt, messy black hair sticking out in every direction. Indigo and Bob - who was least known of all of them but a long-time friend of Breaker's - only gave a brief glance around before sitting sat down against the wall and leaning their rifles against the wall, well within reach.

Cigar in hand, Hannibal took another sip of coffee, and leaned forward on the table. "I just got through with the briefing on our next assignment. We've got less than three days to make it come together. That means no trial run and no room for error."

"Which means it's not recon," Erickson mumbled into his hand, his normally deep, gravelly voice mingled with a yawn.

"And it explains why you're getting us up at the crack of dawn for this," Glaze added. Of all the men present, he seemed the least impacted by the early hour. Or maybe he was just better at hiding it, after years of practice.

Ignoring the commentary from them both, Hannibal continued steadily. "Somebody, somewhere fucked up and gave a VC plant access to a whole lot of classified Agency information, including the names of two hundred fifty-some of our assets and informants."

The words settled with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb. With wide, blinking eyes, the team stared back at him. All the haze of sleepiness and awareness of the hour's inconvenience were gone as the men sat up straighter. Hands clenched more tightly around rifles, jaws tightened, and Hannibal was sure he could've heard a pin drop in the awed, horrified silence that followed.

"They need us to protect those people or, in other words, make this mistake go away," he continued seriously. "In three days, a man by the name of Anh Dung Phan has a meeting with an NVA general, during which he will hand over these names and blow their cover straight to hell. I don't have to tell you what this will mean for them, their families, and anyone they know."

The silence stretched. Breaker was the first to move, albeit silently, to the table. He reached for the folder and opened it with careful reverence, as if uncovering a dead body for identification. Bob lit a cigarette and leaned forward, head in hands. The rest of them remained stock still until Indigo finally broke the silence.

"Why three days?" he asked reverently. "Why not right the hell now? It seems like pretty important information to put on the shelf for three days."

"The Agency has used what influence they have in the north to convince said NVA general that this information is unimportant," Hannibal replied. "But he's still going to take a look and he _will_ change his mind once he sees it."

"Uh huh," Breaker cut in with obvious cynicism. "Isn't it just as likely that we're not getting the whole story?"

He looked up, directly at Hannibal. In the limelight, but not altogether uncomfortable with that fact, Hannibal nodded slowly. "That's always a possibility with the Agency," he admitted. "But frankly, if they wanted to make up a story, they probably could've come up with one that made them look a bit less incompetent."

"Two hundred fifty people is a shitload of informants and assets," Glaze said quietly. The details that may or may not be hidden didn't seem to matter much to him, given the potential risk if the gist of the report was to be believed. "Every one of those people requires weeks or even months to turn and God knows how much money."

Erickson frowned deeply, finally finding his voice again. "Sounds like whatever asshole gave a potential VC plant access to that kind of information needs to be drug out into the street and shot."

"Oh, I'm sure the Agency's already taken care of that," Hannibal said dryly.

Breaker dropped the folder back to the table and looked at Hannibal. "So what's the deal?" he demanded. "We find this plant and what? Kill him?"

"That's not hard," Bob said, clearly unimpressed. "Why do they need us for that?"

Hannibal hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Phan is currently hiding _with_ the folders - and yes, he apparently waltzed right out of Agency HQ with them - in a small village of about fifty people." The sarcasm and anger drained from his voice. In its place was something emotionless and serious, just as plain as if he were reciting words from a script. "At this point, all fifty of them are a potential threat. Any and all of them have had access to that information. We have to make that threat go away or risk losing 250 of our own."

The words settled, but still didn't sink in. He could tell that much by the confused looks as the men exchanged glances. "So bomb it," Glaze finally offered with a shrug. "They do it often enough and for less of a threat."

"They can't bomb it," Hannibal replied seriously.

"Why not?" Glaze challenged.

"Because they want to keep their fuck up as quiet as possible," Breaker guessed, though it sounded as though he was completely convinced. "They have to give a reason for bombing it."

"That's true," Indigo agreed.

"And there's another reason," Hannibal added quietly, waiting until the murmur in the room quieted again before continuing. "People survive bombings. Anyone who's done BDA knows that. If even one of those people goes on to publish that information, the rest die for nothing."

The hush that settled over the room was eerie. Finally, it was Breaker who spoke. "They want us to clear a whole _village_?" he asked, his voice slightly shaky.

Hannibal resisted the urge to massage away the headache forming behind his eyes. He'd had a chance, over the past three weeks, to go over the personnel files of all five of his men. As a sniper, Bob had carried out assignments on Agency information; his relationship with them had been superficial and generally good. Erickson and Glaze hadn't dealt with them much and Indigo's greatest exposure had been under Hannibal's command. But Breaker had plenty of experience of his own. He'd cleared brothels full of VC women, executed the injured survivors of bombing runs, and knew more than any of them what it meant to look an enemy in the eye - with no regard for age, sex, or mercy - and pull the trigger.

"I draw the line at children," Indigo said coolly. "I've got no problem if they're shooting at me, but I won't execute them."

Hannibal's tone was calm as he continued. The anger was still there, but now wasn't the time for it. "The village is a known VC breeding ground," he explained. "And that folder has probably circulated to every person in it."

"I'm sorry," Bob interrupted, raising a hand, "are you saying they _do_ expect us to execute children?"

"Right now, any children in that village are human shields," Hannibal replied. "At any time they can be turned into human weapons."

"You can't be serious," Glaze said with a disbelieving laugh.

"We have no idea how many copies of that list have already been made," Hannibal continued, ignoring the commentary. "We _do_ know that if it gets into the hands of the NVA, it will mean the slaughter of a lot of people who've put everything on the line to help us. Them, their families, their villages, and anyone they care about. We all know what Charlie does to informants."

Finally the shock was really and truly starting to wear off. Erickson finally stood and paced a few steps away before turning back. "Let me make sure I understand this," he began quietly. "They want us to walk into a village and slaughter every man, woman, and child because they can't be sure a bomb would kill every one of them?" With a tense laugh, he turned back, shaking his head. "What the fuck are we supposed to do with that?"

There was no good answer to that question, no advice or suggestion for how the hell any of them were supposed to live with themselves afterward. But the thought of just letting it run its course was worse.

"I can't order you to do this," Hannibal said quietly. "And even if I could, I wouldn't. But somebody's going to have to do it."

"That kind of information leak doesn't end with one village," Indigo said, eyes narrowed into slits as he glared at Hannibal. "What's next? They gonna have us systematically go through all the people the villagers might have told?"

"I will _not_ execute children," Breaker declared. "Not unless they're shooting at me. I ain't Charlie."

Hannibal's anger, so long suppressed and carefully contained, came out in a sudden rush he almost couldn't control. It just happened to come out in Breaker's direction. "No, we're _not_ Charlie!" he yelled as he hit the table with both fists. "And we're _not_ going to just stand by and watch and turn over the people who have trusted us to keep them safe to keep our own fucking moral codes intact!"

Breaker took a step towards Hannibal, fury in his eyes. "No kids!" he yelled back. "I will not fucking do it. Discharge me right the fuck now or put a bullet in my head. I will _not_ kill children!"

The angry threat of violence from the much shorter man standing toe to toe with Hannibal was a thing of beauty. If he cared that he was yelling in his CO's face, he didn't show it. After a long stare down, Breaker moved until he was on the other side of the table, grabbing it tight.

"I'm with Breaker," Indigo agreed. "I won't do it. I don't care what it costs."

"Kids are _going_ to die," Hannibal whispered, head dropped between his shoulders as he leaned forward on the table. He hated the words coming out of his own mouth. He hated them with a deep and burning passion. They gave his men an excuse, if they wanted to believe them. But they did nothing to ease his own conscience, and that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he considered the fact that there was _no_ outcome to this scenario that wasn't horrific.

"Kids are going to die and that's going to be on your conscience for the rest of your life," Hannibal growled. "Because now you know about it, and you can't un-know it. More than that, you have to make the choice about _which_ kids are going to die. You get to play God and decide whether it's going to be the kids whose families trust us to protect them or the kids who will shoot at us when their hands are big enough to wrap around the grip of a gun."

"That's fucking bullshit and you know it!" Breaker yelled, his eyes flashing with anger. Even Erickson, easily twice his size, took a step back from the display of fury. "You wanna find a way to convince yourself it's okay, that's fine. But I'm not buying it. I told you from the start I would not do this bullshit for the Agency!"

Hannibal looked at him, eyes dead and cold. "And I told you, I won't force you," he said low. He glanced around at the rest of the team. "I won't force any of you. But this is a legitimate problem. Whoever fucked up to make this problem and whatever could've, should've, or would've been done to it from happening, that all means nothing. It's happened. And I'll fix it on my own if that's what it takes."

"What is this," Glaze demanded, "some fucking guilt trip?"

Hannibal shook his head. "Just the facts. It's a tough call. You have to live with your decision and I have to live with mine."

After a long moment, Indigo finally tore his eyes away from Hannibal and ran his hands over his head. "This is fucked up, man." He spoke to no one in particular, but the anger was gone from his voice. Acceptance and resignation was slowly setting in. This was really happening. The fact that they were unfortunate enough to witness it was almost inconsequential. The events had been set in motion. One way or another, innocent people were going to die. Lots of them.

 **October 17, 1982**

"You massacred every man, woman, and child in that village," Suzanne accused, staring across the picnic table at Hannibal. "You had no orders, no authority. What was it, some personal vendetta?"

With a slow nod, Hannibal lowered his eyes and processed the words. They weren't entirely unexpected - he'd already known the topic of her interest - but they stung just the same with the bitter taste of long-buried resentment. "Is that what they told you?" Hannibal asked, all of the light-hearted banter gone from his tone. "We went rogue and decided to slaughter a village just for the hell of it?"

"There was plenty of speculation as to why you did it," Suzanne answered dryly. "Frankly, I don't think your reasons matter. I've seen the photographs and they're definitely worth a thousand words."

He nodded slowly as the silence hung thickly in the air. Looking away, he drew in a deep, slow breath. Where the Agency was involved - hell, even where they weren't - orders had a tendency to go missing where Hannibal and his team were concerned. It was no surprise, especially since Hannibal had been fully expecting it from the start.

Glancing again at the professionally-dressed woman looming over him, he took a moment to try and see things from her point of view. She had an employer - maybe one who'd recruited her, or possibly just contracted her for one particular job - whom she was inclined to trust. Even if she'd had no other exposure, Hollywood had been producing CIA movies for the past decade, much to the general population's delight. Secret agents and spies fascinated America, and heroes in feel-good movies never had to deal with the kind of ethical dilemmas that existed in the real world.

Maybe Suzanne had actually been recruited by the Agency, and jumped at the opportunity with an expectation of glamour and excitement. If that was the case, she had yet to be disillusioned by the facts. But it would come. He didn't need to hurry it along and frankly, he didn't want to. She was young and idealistic and he had a certain reverence for her innocence. It was something he hadn't experienced for himself in a long, long time.

But that didn't mean he was willing to be counted as a murderer for the sake of her naiveté. So, with a sigh, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He noticed the way her hand gravitated toward her gun, but he wasn't reaching for a weapon and she realized that before any overt threats were made. Fumbling for only a few seconds through business cards and loose bills, he finally found what he was looking for and unfolded the photograph, holding it up.

"Ever seen that one?" he asked coolly.

She hesitated, but finally stepped forward to get a better look at the faded, deeply creased black and white picture. He didn't need to look at it; he'd memorized all the features years ago. Nine Vietnamese children, the oldest no more than ten and the youngest only an infant in the arms of the tired-looking woman on the end, stared back with slightly glazed looks. There were no smiles, but the children were not only dressed, but shoed - a luxury in their culture, and an inexplicable anomaly in their obvious poverty.

Suzanne took it in quickly, then looked back up. "What, Smith, you carry pictures of your victims, so you can relive the thrill of murdering them?" Her hand tightened on the gun.

Hannibal sighed at her unwarranted aggression. "Look again, Suzanne," he said coldly. "That building they're standing in front of is an orphanage - one my team built with every spare minute we had. You see those shoes on their feet? The toys they're holding? We boughtthose."

"That's very noble of you," she answered, unimpressed. "But putting shoes on one kid's feet doesn't make up for the fact that you murdered another."

He shook his head at her complete inability to grasp the obvious. "You know, Suzy -"

"Suzanne!"

"- sometimes you're really dense." He snatched the photo back and returned it to his wallet, where it belonged. "Those children are alive because we disobeyed the orders we received directly from the people who told you I never had any."

He could tell, by the look of shock on her face, the thought had never even occurred to her. Not giving her a chance to process, he continued with the same authoritative, determined tone.

"The thing is, we made sure they never found out. We never reported that we spared the children - those we could - because if we had, the next thing the Agency would've done is kill everyone in the damn orphanage, and probably us, too. In fact, if the war wasn't long over, I would've said you being here suggests they found out."

Closing her eyes, she shook her head as if to clear it as he rose to his feet. Instantly standing on the opposite side of the table, she fixed him in a pointed glare. "Except the war _is_ long over," she stammered. "And your paranoia is unfounded. All they want is to talk to you!"

He shook his head again in disbelief and chuckled low. "You play a dangerous game, Ms. Davids," he warned, "with dangerous people. I don't know what they want and I don't care because I'm not interested in working for, meeting with, or talking to _anyone_ involved with Agency affairs. I left all that behind me, and I couldn't go back to it if I wanted to."

As he spun on his heel, she followed. Still struggling to regain her composure, she stumbled over a few false starts before coming out with words. "Even if - and I do say _if_ \- you didn't kill those kids," she managed, catching up and skipping alongside him, "you still killed the others. How can you even pretend that was anything but murder?"

He raised a brow, challengingly. "Are you going to stand there and tell me you've had a good moral reason to take down every target they've sent you after?"

Her glare was penetrating and full of conviction that didn't match her ungraceful struggle to match his step. Giving up on the attempt to pace alongside him, she took a large step into his path and faced him, hands on hips. "There's no record of any orders sending you to kill civilians," she said firmly.

"Or rob the Bank of Hanoi," he added, again amused by her naiveté. "Funny how paperwork gets lost."

Not waiting for her response, he stepped around her and headed in the general direction of the street, away from her car. He hadn't really given much thought as to how he would get home, but he considered it now.

"Can you prove it?" she asked from behind him, a last ditch effort to stop his retreat.

He laughed before turning back to find her standing in the same exact spot, staring after him with a look of confusion mixed with lingering anger.

"If I could," he replied, "do you really think I'd _choose_ to be a fugitive?"

"I don't mean Hanoi," she snapped back, setting fisted hands on her hips. "I mean Linh Hu Nao."

His eyes narrowed at her. "Alright, Suzy," he said as patiently as he could manage. "Maybe you really _are_ just a go-fer. How many years have you had out in the field, anyways?"

She stiffened at the jab that hit just a little too close to home. "I have enough experience that they sent me after you, Smith."

"But not enough to understand covert ops," he concluded, "least of all in a war that was brewing before you were even born. The only way anyone proves anything about Vietnam is if the government wants it proven. Whether or not it's true doesn't seem to matter half as much. In another forty years, when the classification rating expires on all the documents, you might find anything that wasn't tossed in a bonfire. But don't hold your breath. I'm certainly not."

"Then that snapshot doesn't change a damn thing," she replied. "Whether your story is true, whether it's not, I have my orders. You don't want to work for them, fine. You can tell them that yourself, because I am going to bring you in for the meeting."

"I understand," he nodded. "Though you will, of course, understand that I'm not going to go quietly."

Suzanne gave her own vicious little smile. "Trust me, Mr. Smith, I don't care if you go quietly, screaming, or feet first. But mark my words, you _will_ be going."

"We'll see." He smiled, and turned away again. "Shall we call this a neutral meeting just this once?" he called over his shoulder. "Since it would be a shame to disappoint your friends at the police department by arresting me without their help after all."

He could feel her glare boring into the back of his skull as he headed toward the nearest pay phone to call a cab.

"I'll be seeing you soon, Mr. Smith!" she called after him, an empty threat that echoed in the otherwise still afternoon.

"I look forward to it," he answered. "Almost as much as I look forward to the conversation we'll have when you finally get your story straight."

 **November 12, 1967**

Hannibal didn't knock. He didn't acknowledge the secretary who stood to greet him, or the warnings that he couldn't go into the office unannounced. He didn't care that he was covered in blood spatter, hands stained a dull brown with dried blood. It was more than skin deep. He could feel that stain on the very core of his being. And he knew in that moment it would never be gone.

He shoved the door open, and ignored the startled look of the man behind the desk. "What is this?"

It took a moment longer - after his immediate and instinctive response - for Richard Ekhart to realize that the man who'd just barged into his office was covered in blood and carrying a loaded rifle. His eyes widened noticeably as the sight registered, and Hannibal took three quick steps to his desk before heaving the small pack he was carrying onto the desk, ripping it open, and spilling the contents in front of the man. A dozen blood-soaked, handmade dolls and toys dropped onto his paperwork and overflowed into his lap. He jumped back so far and so fast he tipped his chair over backwards.

"A few souvenirs," Hannibal growled through gritted teeth, his eyes blazing hatred. "From the mission you just sent me on."

He reached deeper into the bag, for the folder that had gotten caught. It too was covered in fresh, still-sticky blood. As he threw it on the desk, the contents scattered everywhere. "And if you didn't learn anything from this about letting the VC into your classified files, then next time _don't_ call me. Because once I walk out of this office, if I ever see your face again, I will shoot you dead."

The man stood gaping at him, eyes wide, unable to speak. With pure hate in his tone and every movement he made, Hannibal grabbed one of the dolls with string hair and button eyes and threw it as hard as he could at the man's chest. "This is on you!" he yelled. "These are the children whose lives your mistake cost!"

Throwing the pack on the floor, he leaned on the desk with both arms. "And I hope you never sleep another night without knowing that in spite of your three piece suit and your manicured nails, you're a fucking cold blooded murderer. You just don't have the _balls_ to pull your own goddamn trigger."

Still, the man said nothing. Staring at him with wide, horrified eyes, he was too dumbfounded to react at all. Furious, and not adequately vindicated, Hannibal swept his arm across the desk, dumping the contents onto the floor. Then he spun and walked to the door where the secretary was standing with a similarly shocked expression. Almost out of the room, Hannibal turned back.

"By the way," he snarled. "We used AK-47s so that no one would trace it back to you. And I _expect_ that you will have a team of men on their way within the hour to bury those bodies. _Don't_ disappoint me!"

He turned away again, and this time made it to the door before a shaky voice stopped him. "Colonel Smith?"

He spun quickly, and his eyes locked hard on the man - as if he could kill him with that glare alone. "What?"

A long hesitation, then Ekhart finally cleared his throat. "Thank you."

Hannibal's eyes narrowed into slits. "Fuck you. I'm a soldier, I don't do this for gratitude. And I'm not a goddamn murderer for hire. Don't you _ever_ forget that!"

Without another word, he turned and walked away, pushing his way out of the door, and out of the office.


	11. Chapter Ten

**CHAPTER TEN**

 **October 18, 1982**

BA spotted Hannibal well before the kids at the Day Center had a chance to. When Hannibal wanted to get a hold of him, he knew right where to look. The Day Center was one of those hangouts that they were all just waiting for someone - namely Lynch - to pounce on. But so far, the military police had kept their distance. They knew about it; Lynch had been by a number of times and had even talked to the kids. But they'd never carried out any kind of raid. It was amazing just how much street kids _didn't_ trust police of any kind, and how much they'd neglect to mention when someone started asking questions about one of their friends.

They were all eyeing Hannibal warily as he stepped into the gated yard, and casually made his way to the rickety wooden bleachers - hastily and cheaply constructed a few summers ago on the side of the dirt baseball field. BA kept his attention on the kids, even as his mind went through the limited number of reasons why Hannibal would come here looking for him. Hannibal wasn't interrupting, so it wasn't critical. But he had also chosen to come here instead of just calling, so it was more important than a run-of-the-mill mission. Whatever it was, BA had a feeling it wasn't good.

BA spent a moment to try for the tenth time to show one of the kids how to hold a baseball bat. It was hard to believe just how difficult this concept seemed to be and harder still to believe BA had such unending patience for it. But it was a kid and that made all the difference.

Leaving the bat in the boy's hands, BA spoke to the oldest in the group. Juan was fourteen, and tall for his age. More important, he had a good understanding of the game, and how to be a role model for the younger kids. "Okay kids, Juan is gonna throw some balls, shirts are gonna bat and skins are gonna field, then we switch. Got it?"

There was the normal amount of laughter and shoving as the kids sorted out where they needed to be. BA headed for the bleachers. Something about Hannibal's expression had him frowning a little more than normal as he sat down, still watching the kids. "No shovin' Dante!"

Dante gave him a suitably abashed smile and headed for left field. BA watched him, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Sarah hit a line drive. For an eight-year-old, she had a heck of a swing.

"We might have a problem," Hannibal said, low and calm. "It's not critical, but I wanted you to hear it from me."

Suddenly, all of BA's attention was on Hannibal. It wasn't his tone of voice or his body language - both of which were calm and assured. BA knew for a fact that appearances had very little to do with what Hannibal was thinking or feeling. The fact was, whatever he was about to say, he felt the need to come and say it in person. BA felt his frown deepen, and his stomach tightened as he waited for the bomb to drop.

Hannibal leaned forward, elbows on knees, watching the kids. "The Agency wants a word about an assignment I took for them in 'Nam. You weren't involved - it was before we met - but the woman they've hired to bring me in may still come to you for a chat."

The hairs on the back of BA's neck stood up as Hannibal glanced sideways at him. His stomach felt like it was full of lead _._ Agency mission. BA had lost any respect for the CIA years ago. The things he had done in their employ were the stuff of his nightmares.

"What kind of assignment?" he asked gruffly, eyes still on Hannibal.

Looking away uncomfortably, Hannibal shifted. "The kind we don't talk about," he answered, not being half as vague as the words may have sounded to an outsider. For a second, the sound of the kids chatting and the crack of the bat seemed to turn to screams of pain and gunshots. He closed his eyes tight and fought against the unwanted memories. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like forever to BA.

"Why they wanna talk about it?" he growled. "If they ordered it, they know what happened."

"I don't know what they want," Hannibal admitted quietly. "But I'm not about to go have a friendly discussion over coffee and find out."

BA's hands grabbed the worn wood of the bleacher seat, so tight he could feel splinters embedding in his palms. Good. The vague sense of pain served as an anchor to keep him here in the present.

"So far I've avoided her," Hannibal continued. "But at this point, she may come to you."  
"I ain't talkin' to no one 'bout the kinds of stuff we did for the Agency," BA said firmly. "Not _ever_." What he did in those days was between him and God, no one else.

"I didn't think you would." Hannibal looked back at the kids. "I just didn't want it to come as a shock if she showed up and gave you the story."

Under all the emotions, questions about why now and what this really meant were floating around BA's head. He wasn't prepared to talk about it, but just the fact that a CIA spook was digging up the past, looking for something about those dark days, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"What you gonna do about this?" he demanded. Both of them knew avoiding it was only going to work for so long. The Agency was nothing if not determined.

"I'm not sure yet." Hannibal admitted. "Right now, I don't know just how invested - or how good - she is. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with her."

BA grimaced at the light tone with equal parts anger and worry. Something about the glimmer in Hannibal eyes unnerved him. "I ain't playing games with the CIA," he said seriously, shaking his head.

"I wouldn't expect you to," Hannibal answered, though his tone dropped into a more serious one. But in spite of the fact he knew the risks, BA knew Hannibal would enjoy going a few rounds with the Agency. Although it seemed stupid and risky in BA's mind, Hannibal had more than earned the right to seek his fun where he could. And besides, they had to deal with it somehow. The "head on" approach seemed to work for him, most of the time.

BA's gaze returned to the kids on the field, fumbling a grounder. They were laughing and joking, doing all the things those kids in Vietnam never got to know. "Watch your back, Hannibal." It was more than just a statement of the obvious. It was genuine worry and concern. "Nothin' good gonna come from this."

Hannibal nodded. BA watched him for a moment before he hung his head. Without a word, Hannibal stood, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he headed away. BA's eyes followed him. Somewhere in the pit of his being, BA knew he would go to hell and back for that man, no matter what he'd done or why. He had done it before and would do it again. But to make that offer out loud was needless.

Hannibal knew it was there.

 **November 12, 1967**

The hotel clerk was paid well to keep his observations to himself. Not that Hannibal felt he really needed the extra security. Nobody gave a damn who was fucking who in these rooms - which officer had which whore in which room. Hannibal wouldn't have even been surprised to find the hotel staff knew, and didn't care, which officer had which other officer in which room. It certainly wasn't something he cared to think about. Those issues were not his to deal with. He had only his own men to worry about and best he could tell, the only problem there was which _group_ of whores Glaze and Indigo dragged off to some seedy hotel. But as long as they came back in one piece and didn't bring any heat on the team for their behavior, he didn't really care what they did, how they coped.

They all needed a way to cope right now.

Walking up the steps to the familiar room, Hannibal's mind replayed over the past twenty-four numb hours. There had been no formal debriefing, as such. He'd reported to the man whose name was on the paperwork, and he'd reported to Westman. But in both cases, not much was said. In a vain attempt to lighten his spirits, Westman had invited him to dinner with his wife, who was visiting the base on one of her foolish but frequent visits into the world of excitement and adventure in Southeast Asia. All things considered, it was probably an exercise of wisdom on Westman's part to bring her here. She was beautiful and familiar and it was a hell of a morale boost to see her paraded around the camp, smiling and laughing and generally radiating goodness and innocence and pretty vanity.

Hannibal sighed as he slid the key into the lock, pushing the door open without bothering to knock. It was his room, after all; he'd paid for it. A part of him felt guilty for being here. His team was on a mandatory stand down, to recover from the trauma of their most recent excursion. He should be available for them, accessible and ready to lend support. But right now, he didn't have the encouragement to give. Haunted by the images of bloody bodies and screaming children, he felt remarkably empty inside.

Sitting in the padded chair at the tiny table in what was jokingly referred to as a "suite", the familiar blonde-haired woman looked up as the door opened, and gave him a full smile. "Oh, darling, I just knew you'd come!" she cried, bubbling with excitement as she instantly set her glass of vodka aside and stood to greet him.

He regarded her silently, closing the door and pulling the chain across. With a quick, sweeping glance, he took in her pale pink, floor-length nightgown, its sheer fabric billowing around her with every artful step she took toward him. "I'm so happy to see you!" she cooed with the pouty voice of a refined aristocrat, elegant and distinguished, yet overtly feminine and frankly a bit silly. The cares of this world were altogether beneath her.

Delicate hands slid from his chest to his shoulders and she giggled coyly as she rose to her tiptoes and placed a light, fleeting kiss on his lips. "It's been too long."

"Of course it has," he answered flatly, sidestepping her embrace and tossing the key on the dresser.

"I thought perhaps you were avoiding me," she pouted. Spinning on her heel, she set her hands elegantly on her hips and chided, "My husband said you were too busy to come to dinner."

"All things considered," he said dryly, sitting down on the edge of the bed to remove his boots, "I thought you'd prefer my company now rather than at dinner."

She smiled - a full grin of childlike excitement as she knelt at his feet to help with the boots. "Perhaps," she conceded. "But is it so much to ask that you make a normal, civilized appearance now and again?"

Ordinarily, he would have humored her, played into her teasing and wound her up. This time, he had very little patience for it. Maybe coming here was a bad idea after all. "In case you hadn't noticed," he informed, "there's a very uncivilized war on."

Her pronounced pout turned to a frown as she removed his boot and set it aside. "You're so cruel to me, John," she chastised. Leaning forward, she gave him a full view down the front of her gown. "I came all the way to Vietnam to see you, and you won't even spare the courtesy of joining me for dinner."

With a sigh, he flopped back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling fan. "You _and_ your husband," he reminded.

Pulling at the laces of his other boot, she hesitated only a brief moment. "That hardly makes a difference," she said softly. "Or perhaps it's _my_ presence that goes unnoticed when the two of you sit down to discuss war and politics."

He sighed, not bothering with an answer. A moment later, his boot slid off and she rose, her shadow falling over him in the harsh light from the unshaded lamp on the bedside table. She was quiet for a moment, until he finally shifted his gaze from the peeling paint on the water-damaged ceiling to the self-assured smirk on her face. "You really are quite brutish, you know," she said lightly.

"And yet, here you are," he pointed out. "Sneaking off the comfortable base to rendezvous in a dirty hotel room."

"Sometimes I wonder which of us is the greater fool," she replied with a grin.

He studied her for a moment, then sat up again, hands sliding over her hips, drawing her between his knees. Without thought, he placed a soft kiss on her stomach, through the delicate, sheer fabric of the nightgown. He'd not touched anything so soft and feminine in what felt like ages.

"You know, when you didn't come to dinner, Ross wouldn't either." She scratched lightly at his scalp, fingers buried in his short hair. "He was suddenly too busy. Perhaps I should make you pay for forcing me to dine alone this evening."

He chuckled - a quick, mocking laugh that made it clear he was not impressed by her threat. "That could be interesting," he challenged.

"You laugh!" she cried, feigning horror as he pulled her into his lap. Pressing a hand flat against his chest, she batted her lashes. "Don't you think I could teach you a lesson in manners?"

"I've had plenty of teachers," he answered, finally responding to her needling with a faint smile of his own. "If I haven't learned yet, I'm not going to."

For the first time, he took a long, appreciative look at her, drinking in the sight. With obvious intent he ran a hand up over her back and neck, into her hair where he tightened his fist. She gasped softly, although he hadn't caused her pain. It was only meant to hold her still as her lips parted and she drew deeper, fuller breaths, chest rising and falling more noticeably.

"Perhaps you need better teachers," she whispered.

"I think it's a stubborn streak," he corrected. His fist tightened further and her eyes slid closed as she moaned softly. "Some people just gotta learn the hard way."

Without giving her a chance to respond, he pulled her mouth against his, guiding the kiss with a hand in her hair, his tongue forcing past her lips and teeth, through her defenses. She didn't even offer a token resistance.

His free hand moved down as he held her still, drawing up the nightgown past her knees until he felt the warm, soft skin of her inner thighs. With more determination now, and greater intensity in his kiss, he reached under the gown all the way to her hip, hooked his fingers into her panties and pulled down.

Without warning, without finesse, he stood, forcing her onto her feet as he let go of her hair. She gasped and nearly stumbled, but his grip on her was firm enough to hold her steady and guide her where he wanted. Sliding his other hand up under her gown as well, he pushed her undergarments out of the way and backed her up against the wall in two steady, determined steps. He wanted her. And right now, with all of the frustration and anger roiling inside of him from the past twenty-four hours, his patience was uncharacteristically thin.

He didn't ask or tease, invite or even say a word. Foreplay, as such, never even crossed his mind. A quick move of his fingers at the buttons of his BDUs, one firm shove to get them out of the way, and he pulled her leg around him as he ground his hips on hers. Instantly hard, he reclaimed her mouth again and lifted her, supporting her weight easily as he thrust deep and hard into her waiting heat.

She moaned into the kiss, legs wrapped tightly around him and ankles locked. Grabbing his shoulders with sharp nails, she held him close as the warmth of her welcoming, submissive body made his thoughts scatter. He immediately found the pace he wanted, in and out of her, pinned hard against the wall.

He let go, let his mind fade to a blank nothingness, without all of those things that made it impossible to think straight. The orders, the lies, the blood, the carnage. The look in Breaker's eyes and the detached numbness in Bob's. The terror of children forever scarred, and the blood of those too old to be left alive. Anger - blind fury - swept through him, and he took it out on her.

With one hand to the wall, he put the other to her throat, pinning her hard as he latched onto her shoulder with his teeth. It wasn't his intent to cut off her air supply - really, she was inconsequential to everything he was feeling right now - but he didn't really care if he did. He only cared about the building release, the emotion all balled up into one tightly packed explosion just out of reach.

She struggled. He was aware of it only insomuch as it made her even tighter around him. Shutting his eyes hard, he gasped breaths through his nose, teeth sinking into soft flesh. The release, when it came, was mind-numbing, and his grip on her neck and shoulder both loosened, hips thrusting erratically against hers. Finally, he stopped, still holding her to the wall and vaguely aware of her gasps for air. Withdrawing silently, he pulled his pants back up and buttoned them, then turned his attention to the vodka on the table in the corner of the room. The numbness was setting in again. He needed a drink.

 **November 13, 1967**

It was nearly dawn when Hannibal arrived back at the base. Tired and unable to sleep, he'd spent the majority of the night pacing the floor, especially once the vodka was gone. All in all, the evening away hadn't done much to improve his mood.

Sitting on the lowest step of the barracks, Bob seemed to be waiting for someone. Hannibal slowed with the uncomfortable thought that it might be him, and took a moment to check his sobriety level to decide whether he ought to preface any discussion with a disclaimer about the kind of night he'd had. But that would've been a needless effort. He doubted any of them had slept well tonight.

"You okay?" Hannibal asked as he approached.

The eerily still base framed the empty look in the man's eyes. Bob didn't answer immediately, just blinked. Several long seconds passed before he drew in a deep breath, then let it out with a shake of his head - the first of several false starts before he spoke.

"I'm done," he finally said, with simplicity and finality indicative of just how many hours he'd spent thinking about it.

Hannibal didn't have it in him to argue. Even if he had, conscience would have prevented it. If Bob had spent the past dark hours entertaining the same horrific visions he had, it was no wonder he'd come to the conclusion that he never wanted to see it again.

Leaning against the wooden handrail, Hannibal stood still and waited for any more the man had to say. But when nothing came, he finally nodded. "I'll talk to Westman," he promised, not taking the time to think about what that conversation might mean. Frankly, he didn't care right now.

"Don't bother," Bob answered quietly, and Hannibal raised a brow.

"What do you mean?" he asked, studying the man a bit more intently.

Seemingly caught off guard, Bob shifted uncomfortably and forced a fake, entirely unconvincing smile. "I'll do it, I mean," he said. "You shouldn't have to."

Hannibal sighed. But he was too tired and there was entirely too much fog in his head to argue. He waited a moment longer before wordlessly clapping a hand on the man's shoulder and heading up the steps. Nearly at the door, Bob's voice stopped him again.

"Hey, Hannibal?"

Turning to glance over his shoulder, he saw Bob still staring out over the empty base. From behind, without the ability to see that dark and haunted look in his eyes, he looked just like any other soldier in clean fatigues - lean and fit, hair cut short, rifle lying beside him. Hannibal spent a half-drunken moment wondering if he would ever look the same from the front. "Yeah?"

"You think God can forgive shit like that?" Bob asked quietly, seriously.

Caught slightly off guard, Hannibal took a moment to consider his answer before speaking. "I think if God needs someone to blame, it sure as hell won't be you."

Bob nodded slowly, but didn't look back. After a long pause, Hannibal turned and continued up the steps again, boots falling heavily on the wooden planks. His mind wandered to the need for sleep and the vague hope of a better day to follow, he stepped through the heavy wooden door. He was only a few paces down the long, dim hallway when he heard the distinct sound of a single pistol shot from just outside the door.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

 **January 4, 1968**

The cool water felt good on Templeton's overheated skin. With one hand gripping the support beam for the hastily constructed stall, he used the other to run the bar of soap over his body, face tipped up into the trickle of water. He wanted a real shower, with privacy and actual walls that wouldn't fall down if he leaned on them. A deep sigh escaped him at the thought of a spacious en suite with a Jacuzzi and a huge window overlooking a glimmering city skyline. He'd have it, someday, if he lived. For now, he shouldn't complain. At least there was water.

Oppressed by the complete lack of solitude in a camp where being all alone was a good way to get killed, he scanned his surroundings to make sure no one was paying him any attention before his eyes slid closed, hand moving down, over his chest, abs, lower... God, it felt good. Even his _own_ touch felt good - his own hands on his own body, like a lover's caress. He hadn't felt that kind of comfort in so long, he might have forgotten what it felt like except for that lingering voice in the back of his mind that begged for it, every day that he spent out here, miles from nowhere.

He wanted a woman.

It wasn't quite as simple as the crude thought made it seem. As he considered the merits of his limited sexual conquests, it became increasingly clear to him that sex itself - while certainly fun - wasn't actually what he needed. Sex tended to be brief, a bit more awkward than movies suggested, and more closely resembling a transaction than a love affair, whether or not money was actually exchanged. It felt good for a while, but it wasn't sufficient to fulfill the craving that led him back to the arms of the opposite sex over and over again. He couldn't describe what, exactly, he craved, but inserting tab A into slot B was only a miniscule part of the satisfaction.

Of course, he hadn't even had even that for quite a while now. Having spent the past six months in the hell hole that was camp A-255, where no women dared lay their heads, he'd grown tired of the routine that had governed his life, in the absence of any decent diversion. It wasn't boring; the nightly shellings and ever-present threat of attack made sure of that. But even the risk of death was losing its excitement.

He wanted to go home. Counting down the days was depressing; they passed far too slowly. What the hell had ever possessed him to walk into that recruitment office in the first place? He'd gone through so much to get here, and now he just wanted to go home.

With a deep sigh, he gave up resisting the feelings of loneliness and despair. They would only leave him even more unsatisfied than he already was, but he was tired and generally miserable. A bit of masochism was in order before the sun set and a fitful night's sleep was interrupted by mortars and gunfire.

He turned to face the camp, peering out over the top of the green walls to make sure everyone stayed disinterested in him as he wrapped his hand tightly around his semi-hard shaft. It wasn't going to help and he knew it; his own hand could not convey that feminine touch, and it just made him want it more. But this was all he had here, now, out in the middle of the god-forsaken jungle. It was the closest thing he had to whatever the hell it was he wanted. And he needed it badly...

He tipped his head back, let the water trickle through his hair and down his back. He had to make this fast; the water would run out, sooner or later. Then there would be no more showers until they could refill it, and God knew how long that would take. Once more quick glance around, and he let his eyes slide closed. He was anywhere but here, and the hand belonged to anyone but him. He was buried to the hilt in slick, warm wetness. The images danced across his mind, and his lips parted as his breathing deepened. Why on earth had he hesitated? This felt so good...

Not surprisingly, it didn't take long. He was seventeen, stressed, and too little privacy had long ago taught him to pretty much come on command. If someone walked up, he'd never finish. He only had until they arrived, and no telling when that would be. With no sound except a staggered gasp for air, he crested and fell, tension slowly easing out of tight muscles with one last shudder. He stroked a few more times, riding out the last few, lingering seconds of pleasure, then opened his eyes to look around again. No one paid him any heed. Good.

He hadn't even turned the water off before the guilt and loneliness washed over him in full force. It dragged him right back down into hell, and he resigned himself to it. Grabbing a towel, he dried himself off roughly, tucked it around his waist, and grabbed his clothes on the way out of the stall. Catholic guilt was a hard, sinking rock in the pit of his stomach. He hated it. Still unsatisfied by the brief climax, all too aware that the good feelings had worn off almost instantly, he felt even lonelier and more desperate now than he had before. He wanted to scream in frustration at the vicious cycle. Instead, he kept his head down and walked silently to the barracks.

"Feel better?" Devon asked as he walked through the door.

Tem looked up briefly at one of his several roommates, then shoved the dirty clothes into the badly damaged box at the foot of his cot. "No," he answered dryly. "Should I?"

Ignoring the concern of the older and more experienced soldier - though Devon was no older than 21 himself - Tem dressed in a relatively clean pair of pants and a badly stained T-shirt before settling on the cot. With his back to Devon, he pulled the sheet up around his chin to discourage the mosquitoes from feasting, and closed his eyes, praying for sleep although he wasn't really tired.

Devon could take a hint. But at the same time, he'd also taken it upon himself to look out for the younger soldiers whose first exposure to the world outside of high school was the "kill or be killed" of war. Tem could feel the eyes burning holes in his back, and heaved a sigh as he heard Devon close the book he'd been reading.

"What's wrong?" Devon demanded. Though gentle, the question clearly expected an answer. The canvas cot stretched and the metal joints creaked as he shifted to put his feet on the floor, giving Tem his full attention.

For a moment, Tem considered simply telling him to go to hell. It wasn't his problem, and Tem didn't need a counselor. But he knew from experience that he could only lay here and feign sleep for so long when he truly wasn't the least bit tired. He also knew Devon wouldn't give up. Finally, with a deep sigh, the young sergeant turned onto his back. Tucking his arms under his head, he stared up at the corrugated tin ceiling.

"I want to do something," he said quietly, not looking at the man who was leaning forward with concern and interest. "I hate just sitting here waiting to get blown up."

Devon shrugged. "Tell Rikland you want to go out on patrol."

Tem frowned, but didn't bother correcting Devon's misunderstanding. It wasn't that he felt bored; he was restless, anxious, and miserable. Patrol wouldn't fix that. He couldn't think of anything - at least, not anything attainable - that could fix it. As the hopelessness settled, it brought a sudden, unexpected stinging to the backs of his eyes. He shut them tightly, furious at himself for even allowing the thought of breaking down to enter his mind. He was a _soldier_ , damn it! Suck it the hell up!

"I want to go home."

Damn it! He'd been so focused on keeping the tears at bay, he wasn't watching his mouth. He clamped his jaw shut, despising himself for the moment of weakness. How the hell could he say something like that? How could he even think it? It wasn't even true; he wanted to be here. He'd worked hard to get here! He wasn't drafted, one of the terrified kids dragged over without a choice. If anyone had a right to yearn for home, they did. But even they knew better than to talk about it, to think about it. Home was the kind of distraction that could get you killed, and make you scared to die.

"Miss your family?" Devon asked sympathetically.

Tem resisted the urge to scold him for the soft tone. He should be harder, too. They all had to be hard out here. Even friendship was measured drastically different when life literally depended on the intervention and support of friends and any or all of them could be taken away without warning.

"I don't have family," Tem answered coolly, brow furrowed as he glared at the ceiling. "I was raised in an orphanage."

Devon paused for a moment. "Girlfriend?" he tried.

Tem sighed deeply. He'd had plenty of those, but none cared or even knew where he was right now. From his very first attempt at seduction, he'd been good at it. No surprise, really. On some basic level, all women young and old wanted the same things - to be appreciated, charmed, and occasionally pleaded with. He saw it as a child, with the nuns who cared for him. Wrapping the sweet and unsuspecting sisters around his finger with boyish charm, he made allies wherever he needed them. As he grew, the role grew quite naturally alongside him. His targets became the girls of his own age.

His life to date had been full of friends and girlfriends and easily-charmed caregivers, all of whom had been quick to offer validation and affection, care and concern. Training with the Army had been hell - learning to do without all of that. He'd pushed through it, formed new bonds, made friends of a different sort. Teamwork took on a new meaning, and he found fulfillment in the mutual trust and support of others facing the same challenges he struggled through.

It was different out here. For the first time in his life, Tem was truly alone and frankly terrified. There was nothing here, no one to ease that uncertainty away. Nobody even cared that he was feeling it. It was a different world out here. Men came in clean fatigues from stateside bases and left in body bags. Best not to get too attached, he'd heard. But how the hell were any of them supposed to get through it without any attachment, without support?

Tem shut his eyes again. "I envy you, you know that?" he finally whispered.

"Why?" Devon asked with curiosity.

"Because it matters if you come back alive."

The silence lingered for a long moment. Then Tem felt a hand on his arm, and opened his eyes to see Devon leaning toward him, a concerned expression on his face. "It matters if you do, too," he reassured softly.

Tem forced a smile, appreciating the weak attempt at encouragement. "Not really," he corrected. "But thanks anyway."

A sympathetic smile - did he actually care? - and Devon's hand moved from Tem's arm to the side of his face. Blinking in surprise, Tem pulled back instinctively and Devon rested his fingers on the edge of the cot instead. "It matters to me," Devon said quietly, sincerely.

Tem stared at him, cautious and yet increasingly curious. Personal space had definitely been breached, but instead of jumping back and demanding an explanation - as he felt he probably should have done - he found himself leaning into the fingers that again hazarded to brush his cheek.

"It's okay," Devon said with a knowing smile. "It doesn't mean anything."

Tem blinked, confused. But his curiosity had the better of him and the gentle touch was surprisingly comforting. It came far closer to fulfilling that craving than his own hand had done a few minutes ago. For the first time in a long time, he didn't feel alone. Whether or not it was actually true, in that moment it felt as though someone else was with him and for him. And if it didn't mean anything...

"It's what you need, isn't it?" Devon said softly, as if reading his thoughts. Moving his hand up to push the wet, blond hair back from Tem's forehead, he smiled compassionately. "I was a lot like you, once."

Tem didn't answer, didn't know what to say. Withdrawing his hand, Devon sat up straighter again and continued in a lighter, almost conversational tone. "If it helps, it does get better."

"When?" Tem asked, prodding carefully. He wasn't sure where this was heading, and he was even less sure of where he wanted it to go. "Six months over here is a long time."

Devon chuckled. "Six months is nothing."

"Longer than a lot of guys _live_ when they come here," Tem pointed out.

A long silence was the only reply, and he watched the memories flash in the older man's eyes - all the friends he'd lost, the people he'd cared about. Why put himself through that? Why care at all? Surely it was better to remain detached.

Of course, that wasn't working out so well for Tem.

"You'll get through it," Devon finally declared, with the casual authority of a man who dealt in certainties.

"Through what?" Tem asked with a tense laugh. "I don't even know what 'it' is except that I just feel like I..."

He didn't finish. Not overly comfortable thinking about his feelings, so anathema to the image of a strong and capable soldier, he was even less inclined to talk about them. Women liked that sort of thing, and surrounding himself with so many of them throughout the years made him more confident about discussing feelings than most men, but he wasn't stupid. He knew when to keep his mouth shut.

Unexpectedly, in the silence that followed, Devon smirked. "Feel like you're alone in the dark, just waiting to die, wondering what the hell you're doing in Vietnam and why you wanted this?" he offered, finishing the sentence with a bit more dramatic flair than even Tem would've used.

Sighing in frustration, Tem looked away. He ran a hand through his damp hair before leaving it to rest over his eyes.

"You know," Devon continued, undeterred, "I was only seventeen when I first joined up."

"Thought you had to be eighteen," Tem mumbled, not removing his hand.

"Seventeen with parental consent and a high school diploma," Devon corrected. "I'd _just_ turned nineteen when I got accepted into Special Forces. I got in by a few days."

Tem hesitated, and peeked through his fingers at the dark haired man before letting his hand drop with a sigh. "I was -" _sixteen_ "- eighteen when I started at Ft. Bragg. A few weeks from turning -" _seventeen_ "- nineteen."

Devon raised a surprised brow and Tem forced a smile.

"They made a special exception," he explained. "Because I did so well on the test."

With a quiet chuckle, Devon shook his head in disbelief. "Jesus, you really are just a kid."

Tem scowled. He hated comments like that, and was glad when Devon noticed the look of disgust.

"Sorry," Devon offered sincerely. "It's just -"

"If I hadn't gone into Special Forces, I would've been out here a long time ago," Tem interrupted, turning onto his side and propping himself up on an elbow. It felt marginally less vulnerable than lying on his back. "And hell, if all I'd done was basic, I would've been dead by now, just like everyone I trained with."

Devon sighed. "Listen, Tem, voice of experience talking -"

Rolling his eyes, Tem looked away. "Don't lecture me. I'm younger than you but I'm not a child."

"You lose people out here," Devon continued, ignoring him. "More than that, you lose yourself - everything you thought you were. You can either deal with it or you can let it eat you alive."

"Thanks," Tem answered dryly. "I needed that."

"The trick is to live for the moment," Devon said. "Damn the consequences because you probably won't be alive to deal with them anyway."

Tem sighed. "That's fine as long as you're the one who dies first."

Laughing, Devon shook his head. "I'm not talking about lifelong commitments here. Take what you can get and when it's gone, move on."

"It?" Tem repeated. "You mean people."

"I mean everything."

Tem frowned in confusion; the soft smile on Devon's face was almost patronizing. Reaching up again, he brushed Tem's hair back with a light touch that seemed far too intimate for their current setting. Stock still, Tem watched his eyes as the hand moved over the side of his face, then his neck. Preconceived notions of how men, let alone soldiers, should behave in each other's presence warred with the reality that Devon seemed intent on rewriting the script. Surprisingly, Tem felt no deep, internalized need to withdraw back into the safety of the expectations he'd mastered years ago.

As Devon's and slid back into Tem's hair, the feeling of awkwardness mounted. "I... uh... thought you had a wife," Tem finally said.

Devon laughed, and Tem shrank back a little. Not the response he'd expected. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but that sure as hell wasn't it. He didn't know the rules for this sort of exchange, how to respond to the vulnerability offered by a man whose reputation - if not his life - would be forfeit if anyone should walk into the room right now.

"I'm sorry," Tem stammered. "I didn't mean to imply -"

"My wife and I are separated," Devon interrupted.

"Separated?" Tem asked, confused.

"Yes." Devon paused briefly, and smiled. "She's on that side of the ocean and I'm on this side."

"Oh."

Tem felt his eyes slide closed involuntarily as the gentle caress roamed over his chest and his sides. He couldn't explain why it felt so good, or why he didn't want to pull away. But then, he couldn't explain half of what he felt anymore. He didn't even want to try understanding it. Hesitantly, Tem reached up with his free hand and returned the touch, starting at Devon's cheek and moving down to the sweat-drenched T-shirt. He noticed the way that the older man leaned into it, a mirror of Tem's own response to simple human touch.

"It doesn't mean anything," Devon said again.

"Then why do you do it?" Tem whispered, staring up at him in confusion.

"Because." Gazes locked, Devon leaned down slowly until, vision blurred, Tem finally closed his eyes. He could feel the warmth as their cheeks touched, and the brush of Devon's lips on his ear as he whispered, "It's the only goddamn thing that feels good out here."

 **October 18, 1982**

"I hate to tell you this," Face said, reclining comfortably at the small round table in the well-lit cafe, "but if you want a blow by blow description of where Hannibal spends his time, you're barking up the wrong tree. So I hope you have another reason for interrupting my meeting."

Though he hid his anxiety well, sitting across from the woman whose arrival in LA had robbed him of his quiet, peaceful week off - not to mention his car - did not fill him with feelings of generous compliance. She would've been a fool to expect that. Whether Suzanne Davids had actually known where to find him or this was a more chance encounter, Face couldn't be positively sure, but he had a strong suspicion it was the former. Given the warning from Hannibal, he wasn't entirely surprised, but this wasn't the kind of interruption that looked good to a potential investor and he would've preferred if she'd picked a better time. She should've realized her poor etiquette in matters pertaining to his reputation would make him even less inclined to answer probing questions.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," she said with a smile, leaning forward and crossing her legs smoothly. "I know your time is valuable. In fact I willing to offer you compensation for the loss of business."

Face raised a brow. "That's very accommodating of you." And not at all what he'd expected. Perhaps she did recognize her lack of sensibility. Still, she had a ways to go before rendering him compliant.

Trapped in the crowded cafe, it was the first opportunity Face had to get a proper look at her. The dark green business suit and low cut blouse underneath made her look the part of an authoritative businesswoman with just enough femininity to intimidate a man. Her hair was neatly pulled back, makeup perfect, nails recently manicured. But the image failed to cover the calluses on her palms and the concealer hiding dark rings under her eyes. Like him, she was familiar with hard work and, also like him, knew when it didn't work to her benefit to advertise it.

"I want to come to mutually beneficial arrangement with the Colonel," she explained. "I'm hoping you can help."

There was an almost-convincing sincerity in her tone - a neatly played game. She could have been flirting with him in the boardroom of a Fortune 500 company, and she wasn't half bad at it. Apparently, she'd done this before and it had worked well for her the first time - and the second, and maybe the third. He understood instantly what Hannibal saw in her. Even to Face, and even in spite of his greater sense of self-preservation, she looked fun to play with.

"I like mutually beneficial arrangements." He gave her a full smile before sipping his coffee. "But I can't speak for Hannibal."

There was a knowing grin from her in return, and slender fingers traced the rim of her mug. "I'm sure we can come to some sort of -" she paused and raked him with a slow gaze "- arrangement."

Face chuckled as he glanced away. She could've been a pro. Leaning back, she slowly reached for her purse, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Not at all," he replied, reaching into his pocket for the easily accessible lighter. He had the flame ready by the time she'd withdrawn a cigarette.

She hesitated, clearly used to lighting her own cigarette. Face gave a small, knowing smile, putting together some more pieces to her overly-complicated puzzle. Whatever her background, she hadn't spent a lot of time around military officers if she was used to lighting her own cigarettes. Finally, she accepted the light and flashed him just the right type of smile. He pocketed the lighter before sipping his coffee again.

Gaze steady on him, she took a slow, deep inhale. "As for the Colonel, I'm not interested in having you speak for him as much as I'm interested in your... opinion of him."

Face covered his quiet chuckle. Opinions were a dime a dozen and she undoubtedly had her own when it came to Hannibal. "Anything in particular you'd like my opinion on?" he asked unassumingly. "Or just in general?"

Her reason for being here was no mystery. Hannibal had told him more than he wanted to know about the assignment she was investigating - if that was an appropriate word for whatever the hell she was doing. But he was good at this sort of dancing, and she was no threat to him right now. In fact, this was probably the best opportunity he would have to get into her head. And knowing one's opponent was always preferable to flying blind.

She relaxed back in the chair, one arm draped along the back of the booth while the other (with the cigarette) played on the rim of her coffee mug. "How about we start with the general," she suggested. "Then we'll see if we can hone in on any specifics."

"He was my commanding officer in 'Nam," Face answered casually, "and I still consider him a close personal friend." He paused for a drink and glanced around the diner to see if he could catch the gaze of one of the busy waitresses for a refill. "I'm sure you've seen enough of my files - or at least of his - to know why we're not on the best of terms with the Army."  
"I know about the Bank of Hanoi, if that's what you mean," she answered lightly.

The high school-aged waitress caught his wandering eye and immediately headed for the coffee pot, eliciting a grateful smile from him. He passed the smile on to Suzanne with a slightly more patronizing but cordial tone to his reply, "I'd be surprised if you didn't. Although I have to say, the CIA is a new one on me."

Taken only slightly aback, she hesitated only a beat before prodding with a safe, "Oh?"

He drained the rest of his coffee, then set the cup on the edge of the table. Suzanne followed suit.

"I didn't expect you had any reason to come after us," he explained. "Particularly since you normally work in other countries, if I'm not mistaken."

Her smile never faltered, to him and then to the waitress who refilled their mugs and disappeared again. "I'm not after you," Suzanne reassured with just a hint of flirtation. She paused for a long inhale and let the smoke out through softly pursed lips before continuing. "And since I know you were SOG, the CIA isn't an entirely new experience for you."

Face smiled, wrapping a hand around his quickly-warming mug as he studied her and wondered just how much she knew. None of it would be firsthand, he was sure; she would've only been in elementary school during the war. "The CIA's SOG and the Army's SOG were not the same thing," he explained with careful reservation.  
"No," she agreed, "but the lines blurred. And the first Special Ops missions, later taken over by Special Forces were Agency run."

Face raised a brow. Actually, that wasn't entirely accurate, but it was what her research would reflect. He was frankly impressed she'd dug deep enough to get it since most of those files were still highly classified. With that classification in mind, he declined to correct the slight misunderstanding. Though he'd hardly suffer any greater penalty for divulging the truth than what he already faced, he had principles.

"In any case," she continued, "I doubt they were as willing to be forthright then as I am now." Her hand drifted to the ashtray, voice lowering just a fraction. "I assume that since you are still close, personal friends with Colonel Smith, he's told you why I'm seeking him out."

"He mentioned it," Face confirmed with a nod. "But I was under the impression all of that was old news. Anything that happened in Vietnam was over ten years ago. Why the sudden interest in it now?"

She looked down for a second and tapped her ashes. "I really can't answer that," she admitted. "That's an answer he'll have to get from my superiors. They didn't clue me in."

The safe answer reeked of bureaucracy. That hadn't passed over well with Hannibal twenty years ago, and it would be even less satisfying now. Face leaned back and glanced away to communicate just how disinterested he was in her scripted response. "And who are those superiors?" he asked flippantly.

She was still smiling, moving and sound right, but suddenly, in the way she looked at him, something was just a bit off. He had been doing this long enough to get really good at picking up on those ever-so-subtle clues: the slight tension in her jaw, the tightness in her shoulders and how she inhaled just slightly harder on her cigarette. The relationship with her superiors was not ideal. Was she actually employed by the Agency, he wondered, or just on loan?

"How about we talk about you?" she suggested, looking up at him again. "I could be very interested in your version of events, Lieutenant."

He shrugged halfheartedly. Unlike her, he remained completely relaxed. "I wish I could help you, but I wasn't even there for the mission you're interested in. And if I had been, I couldn't discuss it with you. As far as I know, those assignments haven't been declassified yet."

"I've seen the file," she retorted quickly, annoyed by the petty excuse. "Clearance isn't an issue."

She was still acting the part of the flirty and confident interrogator. But there was clearly something there, deep in her eyes and in the brittle quality of her voice, that betrayed just how close he'd come to scraping an unexpected nerve.

"Sometimes what you see on paper," she continued, "or in _photos_ doesn't give you the whole story."

He nodded, catching the emphasis but not acknowledging it. "I really am sorry, but I'm not sure how I can help you."

The final drag on her cigarette was clearly just to buy time. Then she crushed out the smoke and took a long drink from her glass of water before looking him in the eye again. Covering up every tiny evidence of her uneasiness, flirtatious smile back in place, she outlined her lips with the tip of her tongue before leaning forward, giving him just a hint of the lacy bra past the neckline of her shirt.

"Look, all we want is for the Colonel to come in for a meet," she said softly, cradling her coffee mug, fingers absently stroking the rim. "Once that happens, we can all go on about our business. No interruptions, or unwanted intrusions. Surely you, if anyone, might be able to convince him to shelf his paranoia for a bit? I'm really and truly not out to get him."

He stared at her for a long moment, passive smile in place, completely unreadable. With measured patience, he let the silence linger a few seconds too long, until she was wondering what she'd said wrong, what he was thinking. Then, finally, he sipped his coffee. His smile fell as he lowered his eyes and mug at the same time.

"You don't know your job very well, do you?" he said, all the coy, flirtatious jesting instantly gone from his tone as he dropped the act.

She blinked, startled, but quickly covered it up with a gentle laugh. "I know. The 'coming in' is pushing it. But you can't blame a girl for trying."

He gave her a long, expressionless stare, and she returned it with a half grin. But he could feel her squirm. She didn't know how to make the transition from one tactic to another when the flirty game didn't work.

"In truth I would be a little disappointed if you agreed to that," she tried again. "My superiors may be put out by the inconvenience, but I'm sure I can get them to agree to a neutral location if you could convince Colonel Smith."

He didn't answer, just watched her. She hid her discomfort well, refusing to writhe under his scrutinizing stare, but he could feel it. Finally, he pushed his coffee cup again and folded his hands neatly in front of him. There was no polite smile or humor in his tone when he spoke again. It was confrontational, but not angry. In fact, for all intents and purposes, there was no emotion in it at all.

"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're lying through your teeth," he declared. "Because if you're stupid enough to think that the Agency would send you after somebody who's conveniently a military fugitive so that you can bring him in for a friendly chat, you wouldn't have gotten this far in life, let alone your career. So ignoring the part about the friendly meeting - which neither one of us is buying - how much do you _really_ know about what you're dealing with here?"

Finally, she gave him the courtesy of responding in kind, letting the façade drop behind dark eyes that bored into his. "Not as much as I _want_ to know."

"What story did they give you?" he snapped. "Hannibal went rogue and decided it would be fun to commit war crimes in his spare time?" He scoffed as he sat back again. "They could've at least been a little more original. The Army's been accusing us of that for the past ten years."

"That's not what happened?" she asked. Her voice was flat, just barely managing to keep it from sounding like an accusation.

His eyes narrowed slightly at her. "Did it ever occur to you that the Agency continued to use us right up until the Bank of Hanoi?"

He could see the flicker of confusion in her eyes - trying to assess him, weigh the information, find a response. She was walking the line between what she could safely say and what she wanted to ask.

"If we - if Hannibal - went rogue, why did they keep giving us assignments, keep trusting us with their goddamn propaganda suicide missions? Or is all of that conveniently missing from your file?"

"Is this you telling me he was acting under orders during the assignment in question?" she demanded.

He leaned in, matching her tone and inflection perfectly. "Is this you telling me you've never considered the possibility that someone wants to make something very embarrassing go away for good? Because if somebody did want that, the only way they could do it would be to eliminate all the witnesses, including Hannibal."

She didn't answer. He watched her for a moment, giving the words a moment to sink in before continuing quietly.

"Your bosses have nothing to gain by talking to him except reassurance that he'll keep his mouth shut," Face said dryly. "Now why the hell would they be so concerned about that if he wasn't acting under orders, hmm?"

Finally, she couldn't help but shift a bit uncomfortably. "I don't know," she admitted. "But -"

"The alternative," he interrupted, sliding out of the booth and tossing a few bills on the table for the tip, "is that they have another plan for keeping his mouth shut. And that, by the way, is more like the Agency that I know. I don't know why they didn't send _you_ with the kill order, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's already been issued."

She swallowed hard, jaw tight and eyes lowered as she tightened her grip on the coffee mug. "Your paranoia is showing," she retorted, but couldn't fill it with conviction.

He eyed her as he slipped his wallet back into his pocket, and gave her a humorless smile. "Think about it, Suzanne," he advised. "I'll see you around."

Without another word, he headed for the door, leaving her to rethink her way through the logic of the situation she was right smack in the middle of.


	13. Chapter Twelve

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

 **January 14, 1968**

The hot, stickiness in the air and the constant buzzing of mosquitoes had long ago become the markers of yet another day in Vietnam. Occasionally, the thick, sweaty haze was punctuated by a breeze and a roaring racket from a helicopter setting down or taking off from the base. It was a sound that drew most everyone to a nearby post to see who - or what, in the case of letters or Red Cross packages - had arrived. Leaning against the wall of the commo bunker, Tem was no exception.

"Who is that?" he asked as the rotors wound down on the black, unmarked helicopter. It wasn't enemy; they weren't shooting and no enemy was stupid enough to set down just outside an American camp's concertina fences, walk up, and knock. They were Americans, curiously dressed in NVA uniforms.

"That," Sergeant Devon Young answered, handing Tem a cigarette before tapping one out for himself, "is Hannibal Smith."

"Hannibal?" Tem raised a brow at the name. Nicknames were common, but either the man had a serious ego, a hell of a reputation, or both.

"His real name's John Smith," Devon clarified. "He's a Special Forces colonel."

Tem glanced at the man standing beside him, unsure. "What the hell is a colonel doing out here?" He took the lighter Devon offered and lit his cigarette. More importantly, what was he doing dressed in an enemy uniform?

"Who knows." Devon shrugged. "From time to time, different teams use us as a Forward Operating Base. Looks like they're just back from recon somewhere."

Suspicions confirmed - the man really and truly did work in the field - Tem watched the team filter through the camp gate. Hannibal shook hands with Captain Rikland, greeting each other with casual familiarity. Apparently Hannibal was the type to get along just fine with the good 'ol boys.

"How long will they be here?" Tem asked, pausing for a long drag on his cigarette. He knew very little about the recon teams of the Fifth - they didn't exactly share information freely. What he did know was that they did some pretty wild stunts, across the border if the rumors were to be believed, and had very short life expectancies. Tem couldn't imagine what could make that kind of risk worth it. Surely it wasn't just the satisfaction of a job well done and the bragging rights of being the "super secret best-of-the-best".

"Eh, they'll only stay a few hours, probably," Devon responded, losing interest. He turned and headed back inside the bunker to the dismantled radio he'd been tinkering with. "Long enough to sleep."

More reluctant to let the curiosity pass, Tem studied the man for a few more seconds before following. "He looks young for a colonel," he observed. Perhaps quick promotions were part of the carrot Fifth Special Forces offered dangled in front of their recruits.

"You look young for a sergeant," Devon replied with a snort of laughter.

Tem smirked, then craned his neck to watch out the window as Hannibal and his team disappeared around the back of the mess tent.

Sensing the interest, Devon shrugged before inserting his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and grabbing up a few of the radio components, one at a time. He turned them over as if they might have an instructional diagram hidden on their underside.

"Honestly, I don't know much about him," he offered. "'Cept rumor has it he'll get you killed."

With a laugh, Tem leaned his hip on the table, hands slipping casually into the pockets of his fatigues. "Sounds about right for a recon team."

Devon cast a brief glance at him and noted the skeptical look. "No, I'm serious," he clarified, watching to see if the words had any impact. "His guys don't last long. The rumors range from 'the entire team was taken POW' to 'he personally slaughtered them all'."

Tem shrugged, unimpressed by the absurdity of the campfire stories shared by fearful soldiers. "If there was any proof of any of that," he said confidently, "they wouldn't keep sending him out there."

"One would think." Devon paused reflectively, turning a blown speaker around in his hand before tossing it in the discard pile. "Either way, he's the closest thing we've got to a living legend."

Tem said nothing, turning again to watch through the opening in the sandbagged wall that served as a window. The young colonel was in view again, and he glanced around as if sensing someone's eyes on him. Tem looked away quickly, before they could lock gazes.

"I put in a transfer request to CCN," Devon said suddenly, startling Tem out of his quiet musing over heightened sixth senses in the field and how well developed Hannibal's must be.

It took several seconds for the words to really register. Transfer request - that part hit him like a ton of bricks. Devon was leaving? Where he was requesting to _go_ was just about enough to leave Tem well and truly speechless. "You what?" he finally managed, stammering on the words. Though he'd heard perfectly, he wasn't sure what else to say.

Devon hesitated for a long moment, glancing up through the window to watch Hannibal Smith's team disappear into the TOC with Rikland. Then, as he took a drag off his cigarette and tapped the ashes on the floor, he cast a quick glance at Tem. "You should come with me."

Tem stared, blinking in shock and struggling through a few false starts before managing a bewildered, "Go to CCN?" He wasn't sure if he was more stunned by Devon's transfer request to Command and Control North or the invitation to come along. Did he have a death wish? Did he think Tem had a death wish? He didn't know whether to be flattered at the invitation suggesting he had what it took to make it out there, insulted by the implication that the best use of his talents would be as a martyr, or at once both abandoned by the man who was running away to something bigger and better and reassured by the invitation to come along. More than all of those things, he was confused and caught completely off guard.

"You're kidding, right?" he asked hopefully.

The way Devon chuckled made it instantly clear that not only was he kidding, he was dead set on this course of action and there would be no persuading him to reconsider. "You were the one saying you needed to get out of this camp," he reminded, as if he couldn't understand why Tem wouldn't be excited for his chosen career path.

"Not to go somewhere I'm going to get killed," Tem corrected. "CCN is the last stop before a coffin - if you're lucky enough to be recovered."

With a shrug and a cutaway gaze, Devon answered quietly, "We're all gonna die out here anyways, Tem. It's just a matter of time." He glanced back at the TOC, where the last of the team of Americans and Montagnards were filtering through the door. "Might as well do as much good as I can while I'm here."

Still staring in equal parts shock and confusion, Tem shook his head and struggled for something more to say. Before he had a chance, Devon continued with a reassuring smile, "Besides, I like the rush."

"Nightly shellings aren't enough rush for you?" Tem asked dryly. The words were beginning to settle in, and with them came a wave of unexpected anger.

Everyone knew friendships weren't forever out here. People died. If they were really lucky, they went home. Tem had no right to feel that stab of betrayal, the wash of abandonment. But that didn't stop him from feeling it. This camp was a miserable place full of miserable people. And all of the people skills that had been so finely tuned by the nuns at the orphanage were useless out here. To hear the one person in this whole goddamn war he actually cared about was running out on him was almost too much to bear. Luckily, he was well versed in methods of hiding such dangerous emotions.

"You're nuts," he said with as much casual dismissal as he could squeeze from an already apathetic tone.

"Heh. You just haven't felt it yet, Tem," Devon replied, as if the conversation really begged for further exposition on the benefits of parting ways. Rising from the table, Devon took another drag on his nearly-finished cigarette, then clapped a hand over Tem's shoulder. "But you will. And once you get a taste for it, you'll understand."

 **January 15, 1968**

"Man, remember when this was all we did?" Glaze recalled, wistfully studying the corrugated tin ceiling from where he lay on the floor. If anyone was wondering why he was down there in the dirt, no one asked.

"What do you mean?" Indigo asked with a yawn, watching as a young soldier in civilian clothes barely made it to the back door before vomiting. RT Mexico was on stand-down too. Indigo snickered to himself at the man's inability to hold his liquor and wondered in a far corner of his mind just how much he'd had to drink.

"This base," Glaze sighed, tipping up the bottle and nearly choking himself by trying to swallow while lying down. He coughed and sat up a little, supporting himself on his elbows. "Remember, Schooner? You were at an A-camp, weren't you?"

It took Erickson a moment to recognize the question had been directed at him. He was still getting used to the nickname, which he'd acquired when he'd foolishly asked for a "schooner" of beer at a Da Nang bar, assuming they might know what he meant.

"Four months," he confirmed.

"Hmm," Indigo snorted, taking another drink. He hadn't been stationed in a camp, but he could still recall the week long stand downs and the security of knowing Covey was always overhead. Covey was still normally overhead, but they never really got to meet him now. They never really met anyone, for that matter. Traveling from base to base with little to no stand-down in between missions, they had no time to get to know anyone. Besides, even if they'd had the chance, they couldn't talk about the work they did, even with other recon teams.

"It was such a close knit group," Glaze continued, as if remembering "the good old days" had made him truly long for the simplicity of it all. "Same guys, same scenery, day in and day out."

"Recon was pretty tight, too," Indigo said. "Three divisions, three bases, plenty of FOBs, but everyone in your division knows each other. Anytime someone's MIA or KIA, everybody feels it."

It was strange to think about how things were now. He wondered if his name would even get tacked on to "Old Blue" if he died out there, or what stories might be passed around about his legendary feats. As for the people who would feel the loss, he could probably count them on one hand. In the six months since he'd joined Hannibal's team, most everyone he'd known from recon had either died or flown back to the States. The tradeoff for the anonymity was worth it, though. He was probably in the most single-minded unit in all of SOG, working with the same guys for an unprecedented number of drops. In so many different situations, he'd learned to rely on the instincts and senses of his team as if they were his own. Losing Bob and Breaker - who'd ended his voluntary indefinite status and headed home almost immediately after Bob's suicide - had been a rough start, but the past few months had been both more cohesive and more important than all his other time in Vietnam combined.

"Hey!" The shout from the other table, where the men were packing up a hard-fought game of monopoly, nearly made Indigo jump. "Y'all wanna join us for a recon cocktail?"

Glaze and Schooner exchanged glances, but Indigo rose instantly, eager for the camaraderie of "normal" recon men. "Hell, yes."

"Recon cocktail?" Schooner asked under his breath as he followed behind.

Indigo only chuckled at his teammate's naiveté. SOG was full of badasses and more often than not, teams of recon men on stand down felt the need to pull out the rulers and see how their dicks measured up. For his part, Indigo held his own, and he suspected the rest of his team would too. It would be amusing to watch Schooner struggle through his first time.

A few steps behind, Glaze dragged himself up off the floor, stumbling to the group of men. As they pulled up chairs around the small wooden table, Schooner watched the first of the three - the one who'd called them over - pour booze into a beer pitcher. "I'm Lefty Saltner, by the way," one of the other two introduced. "RT Mexico."

Indigo shook hands and exchanged smiles. "Indigo Redman," he offered, then pointed out his team. "Schooner Erickson, Glaze Voucher."

Schooner offered a brief glance at Lefty, but was clearly more interested in the concoction of vodka, gin, rum, scotch, and beer that had been dumped unceremoniously into the pitcher.

"Warrant," the other man introduced himself. He smirked as he glanced at the one man who still didn't have a name. "Our uh, bartender there is Stormy."

The bartender - Stormy - had added bourbon, brandy, and several variations of schnapps to the pitcher and was now topping it off with red wine. Schooner had grown a bit paler, but Glaze was watching impassively, undoubtedly glad he was already feeling a bit of a buzz; it would make that shit easier to drink. He downed the rest of his glass in a few gulps to aid the effect.

As Warrant and Indigo exchanged a few names of bases and SF soldiers, in search of a common ground, Stormy added a pinch of his belly button lint, "Just for flavor." Indigo chuckled and shook his head slightly. These men were slightly more drunk than he was. But it wouldn't be a problem. Indigo had played this game any number of times and had never been called out. He was a pro.

The pitcher was passed to him first. He tipped it back without hesitating, then handed it over to Glaze who did the same. The mixture circled around until it ended up back in Stormy's hands. He took a drink, then frowned. "This wasn't mixed well enough."

In the short time it had taken that pitcher to make its round, Indigo was already feeling the effects. He blinked hard to clear his vision, and almost wished he hadn't as he saw Stormy open his fly and use his penis to stir the concoction. Indigo had to admit, it was the first time he'd seen anyone do that during this little game. Once again, he didn't hesitate. But this time, he added his own ingredient. He spat in it before handing it to Glaze, who followed suit.

All the way around the table, the men drank and spat into the pitcher. By the time it got back to Stormy, he hesitated for just a second. Glaze smirked at him. "Pussy."

Indigo chuckled, waiting for Stormy to either make his move or admit he would be the first one out. But he sincerely doubted it would be the latter. No soldier would stand the shame of it so early in the game. With a predictable glare at both of them, Stormy downed a gulp of the spit and liquor. Then he grabbed the ashtray off the table and unceremoniously dumped the contents into the pitcher before handing it to Indigo with a wicked smile. Now it was Indigo's turn to hesitate.

Bracing himself, Indigo was so focused on his task, he didn't even notice Hannibal walking into the room until he'd come right up to the table. "Anyone seen Captain Rikland?" he asked.

Turning his head, Indigo noticed the way his balance wavered just slightly and put a hand flat on the table for balance. "I think he's catching a nap."

The three men from the other team didn't even acknowledge the intrusion, their eyes on Indigo as he worked up the courage to take a drink. A daring smile crept across his lips as he turned and held up the pitcher. "Hey, Colonel, care to try our recon cocktail?"

The RT Mexico men straightened as they realized the man in the sterile fatigues was a colonel. Without batting an eyelash, Hannibal took the pitcher, quickly downed half of what remained - at least five big gulps - and handed it back to Indigo before turning on his heel. Indigo couldn't quite contain the smile that found its way to his lips in response to the beautiful performance. He'd never been so proud of a commanding officer in all his life. Not a flinch - and unlike the rest of them, Hannibal was stone cold sober. It was truly a thing of beauty.

"He's a _colonel_?" Lefty asked, stunned.

"Yeah," Schooner answered with a grin. "Hannibal Smith. RT Cannon."

"Our CO," Glaze added proudly.

Warrant's eyes widened noticeably. "You guys are with RT Cannon?"

"Small world, ain't it?" Schooner smirked.

Indigo nodded his agreement, lifted the pitcher with a merry, "Cheers!" and poured the concoction down his throat.

 **October 19, 1982**

Orders were given, then they were obeyed. Suzanne understood the concept perfectly. In this line of work, people were bought and sold, paid for in currencies that couldn't be measured by the average human being, let alone the average American. How much more was that true in times of war?

But the photos on the desk in front of her made the idea much less simplistic. Bodies lie bleeding in the mud, scattered wherever they had tried to run. Cold and empty eyes stared in terror as the photographer captured their last expressions. Men, women… it didn't matter; they'd all been slaughtered. But contrary to the words of the report, she had to admit that she didn't see a single small child.

Teenagers were killed as indiscriminately as their parents, but the youngest in the photos was perhaps nine and cradling an assault rifle. Where were the infants and toddlers? A well-documented list of all the residents of that village, with names and ages, gave proof of their existence. But now that she was thinking about it, how exactly had they gotten all those names and ages? Records were sparse in the natural environment of villages in Southeast Asia. Most people didn't have a calendar, let alone know their birthdates.

The Agency had turned the massacre into a propaganda effort. If the VC would do this to their own, they certainly weren't speaking for the good of the country. They deserved to be hated and feared. The whole horrific mess had been turned into a force for good by the Agency. American allies had been recruited, in spite of Smith's fuck up. Or perhaps because of it? Had that been his intention? More to the point, did he have any intentions at all, or was he simply following orders?

Accounts from the soldiers sent to clean up the mess read like a horror novel written in technical jargon. They'd buried the bodies and burned the ghost town to let it rest in peace. There were photos of that, too - more destruction as every earthly possession of a desolate people, everything they'd ever loved, was gone in a flash.

She'd been too young to understand the war while it was going on. The history books didn't tell the whole story; they never did. They didn't tell about things like this. Of course, they didn't talk much about the napalm the Americans had dropped on villages just like this, either. Was it different? Photos like this forced her to ask the question. Did it take a different breed of evil to shoot a woman and her child than it did to drop jellied gasoline on them and let them burn to death? War was sick by its very nature.

But there were no photos of the children.

She heaved a sigh as she tossed the papers on the desk and covered her face with her hands. This was _not_ going well. Suzanne prided herself on cool, emotionless logic. But this didn't make logical sense. Worse, she was being effected personally, acting without thinking. The rush of anger and emotions when she looked at those photos was alien to her, frightening and strange. If she could just figure out what the truth was, maybe she could reestablish some sense of order and control.

"Everything alright?"

With a sigh, she glanced over her shoulder to look at the man sitting on the sofa, reading over the papers tucked into his own three ring binder as he finished off the last of the pizza.

"There's no children in these photos," she said flatly.

Luke glanced up, blinked a few times. "Huh?"

The ease with which the words tumbled out of her mouth made her glad that not only was this case a joke when it came to classification rating, but Luke was not the sort of person who had anyone to tell. A trusted friend for many years and a long-time traveling companion, he rarely poked his head out of his books except to lean over a project of some kind or another. Working on the front lines of the CIA's ever-growing technical support department didn't give him much opportunity to get out and flex his social skill muscles. But with access to the CIA's computers came an elevated classification clearance and she wasn't really breaking any hard and fast rules by socializing with him. She didn't take her job so lightly as to share with him details of assignments that might put lives in danger - including his own - but this story was more than a decade old and a matter of blame, justice, and clarification, not life or death.

She turned her chair to face the clean-cut, prematurely balding man on the sofa. "Okay," she began with a deep breath. "Humor me, alright?"

He leaned back, putting his full attention on her as he set aside the binder. "Alright."

Suzanne inhaled deeply, putting her thoughts in order before she spoke. "We know that in this war, it was sometimes deemed necessary – for whatever reason – to kill civilians."

Pausing for just a moment, he tipped his head back and forth as if to weigh those words before finally shrugging. "I'm sure civilians got caught in the crossfire, from time to time."

She frowned. "Time to time makes it sound like a rare occurrence. But it wasn't, was it? We dropped bombs on villages – killed everyone, innocent civilian and enemy alike. And that's nothing new; look at World War II. We dropped an atomic bomb on a populated city with the intent of killing as many civilians as we could. _Two_ of them, in fact." There was a brutal calmness to the way she spoke those facts. This wasn't about emotions, it was about facts and logical reasoning. Luckily, she did that part very well.

"Okay, what's your point?" Luke challenged, brow raised in curiosity. "That what Smith's team did wasn't really so bad after all?"

"What if they were acting under orders?" Suzanne suggested.

Luke rolled his eyes. "Aw, come on."

"Think about it, Luke." Tapping a cigarette out of the pack on her desk, she paused to light it before adding, "There must have been a damn good reason to kill all those people."

"You think so?" Luke challenged. " _If_ they were acting under orders - and so says the man wanted for war crimes, I might add - then I'm sure there was a very good reason. If not, they went rogue. They could've snapped."

She shook her head, staring down at the photos. "Smith doesn't strike me as a man who's snapped. Besides, there was no rape, no burning, no pillage, no torture or mutilated bodies on display or any of the things you typically see in Vietnam with men who _did_ snap."

"Maybe we've got the wrong guy," Luke retorted facetiously.

Suzanne shot a glare in Luke's direction. "The way I see it, there are two completely different ways to interpret these photos. One is from the man who was there, who rightly claimed there would be no bodies of children and told me they were under orders. The other is from the men who would've given that order, presumably with very good reason."

"What does the report say happened to the children?" Luke asked.

"The working theory was that the VC sold them," she answered quickly. The neutral and clinical tone she was using would have been familiar to anyone who knew her. She was analyzing the data. "The soldiers they sent out to bury the bodies, they didn't know Americans had done that so it was a logical conclusion. But how does it work with the facts? Did Smith sell the children to brothels? He doesn't seem the type."

"You'd know better than I do," Luke muttered, reaching for another slice of pizza.

Irritated by his lack of interest, Suzanne narrowed her eyes at him, hands on her hips. "Smith has a picture in his wallet."

Luke glanced up with a confused look. "The children from Linh Hu Nao?" he asked skeptically.

Suzanne frowned as she tried to justify her own lack of skepticism and failed. "He didn't actually say that, no."

"So you just assumed," Luke concluded. "He can't possibly be guilty of genocide because he's got pictures of kids in his wallet."

Frustrated, Suzanne threw up her hands and simply admitted the obvious. "Damn it, his story makes more sense than ours!"

Luke just stared as the words sunk in. He spent the next few moments trying every which way to come up with an explanation that hours of staring at these files had not brought her. He wouldn't find it. But she wished like hell he would.

Suzanne finished her cigarette, crushing it out before she looked back at him. "Now tell me something, Luke," she finally said, quietly. "If your orders were to kill every man, woman, and child in a village - maybe they told you why and maybe they didn't but let's just assume it was a very good reason, a vital reason, a necessity even. What would you do?"

There was nothing in her voice to give away how much the question haunted her; she made sure of that. Still it ran through her head. Could she, if the stake were high enough, do that? Suzanne hoped like hell she never had to find out.

He was quiet for a long moment. It wasn't a fair question and she didn't really expect an answer. He'd never have to make a decision like that. But it didn't stop him from considering it carefully. "You really think they're innocent," he finally realized.

The reply came immediately to her mind. She thought they killed every adult in that village for a damn good reason, spared the children, and were under orders to kill anything that moved. With no hesitation, no doubt, the logic fell neatly into place. She wasn't sure which of those points was the greatest crime; it was all a matter of perspective, really. In any case, she didn't like the chances that a right answer could be found, much less that it would.

Turning away, she sighed. "What I think doesn't matter," she muttered. "I have orders too."

She wasn't sure why she didn't tell Luke what she was thinking. Maybe it was instinct, or habit to play her cards close to her chest. Either way, it was probably best for all parties involved, at least until she found out how far up this went. If whoever had given those orders had found out about survivors there would have been hell to pay. Smith would've known that. Was he the type of man to risk it? That wasn't really a question. She remembered the look in his eyes as clearly as if he were standing in front of her right now - that look that seemed to pierce her right through. Yes, she had no doubt he would risk that.

It answered a lot of questions and it brought new ones to light. Who'd given the orders and why? What difference did it really make more than ten years later? She could see the cover up Peck saw - regardless of how much he did or didn't know about the mission in question. But she couldn't see why. More importantly, if there was a cover up, then this whole thing was an attempt to shift blame from the person who was really responsible for these deaths to an easy target. Is that why they wanted Smith now? Suddenly, her orders weren't so morally black and white.

"So what does it change, Suzanne?" Luke sounded tired. "Are you going to report back and say you don't like this assignment anymore? Ask for a nicer one?"

"No." Her answer was automatic, before she had any idea of what she would do instead. She spent a long moment thinking about it. Orders were orders and she had hers. Maybe more importantly, if Smith was the only one who really knew what happened in that village, he was the only one who could assign the responsibility where it was due.

"What are you going to do?" Luke prodded.

Suzanne took in a slow, deep breath. As she looked up again, her eyes fixed on him. "I'm going to bring him in," she said conclusively. "He's the only one who can clear this up. And if he's telling the truth, someone's got a lot of explaining to do."

That was just another cold, hard fact.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

 **October 21, 1982**

If there hadn't been a peep hole in Hannibal's front door, and if he hadn't carefully chosen an apartment with access into the attic, he would've been a sitting duck when the police showed up. They wasted no words when announcing their business, and no time in kicking down his door. He could hear them on the interior steps as he hoisted himself up into the attic and carefully sealed the hole behind him.

"Looks like nobody's home," the unfamiliar male voice proclaimed, easing the tension coiled around his shoulders. Cramped and uncomfortable in the stifling heat of the stale, dusty attic, he actually found it difficult to stay perfectly still and perfectly silent. The urge to cough came every time he drew a breath.

Pressing flat on the narrow beams and ignoring the way they dug into his stomach, he listened through the vent in the bathroom. He'd have plenty of warning if they thought to check up here, although he really wouldn't have anywhere to run...

"Great." Suzanne was with them. He recognized her dry, unenthusiastic voice immediately, and frowned. Apparently, she'd not been the least bit deterred by confirmation of what he'd given her at the last meeting. He was pretty sure she would've verified it by now, and with all the optimism he could spare, he'd hoped she might come with more questions rather than handcuffs. He couldn't procure enough wishful thinking to envision her simply leaving him the hell alone.

"He must've known we were coming," she said with a sigh.

"Or he's just out and about," the officer suggested.

"No, it's Thursday," she replied firmly. "He's always here on Thursday evenings."

She was right, and it made Hannibal smile to himself. At least she made an effort to get to know her target.

"Well, apparently not _this_ Thursday," the cop dismissed with an irritated huff.

"Alright," another male voice chimed in. "Search this place top to bottom. I want to know where we can find this guy."

They wouldn't find anything. However, it did mean he was going to sit here for a while. He closed his eyes and focused for a moment on complete calm and stillness. The position was uncomfortable, and breathing too deeply would make him sneeze. In order to remain silent, he'd have to work at it.

"Didn't you say the first time you talked to him was at his job?" one of the voices beneath him prodded.

"Yes," Suzanne answered flatly, "but he hasn't shown up for work since."

The sound of drawers in the bathroom opening and closing made him raise a brow. Just what were they hoping to find - a secret stash of shaving cream?

"Think he got another job somewhere else?"

Actually, he hadn't. The lovely Miss Davids had all but sabotaged him in the movie business – at least temporarily. He'd find a way to get re-established - a pseudonym, maybe. But in the meantime, an out of town venture might actually help take the heat off. Maine was nice this time of year. Or maybe Minnesota. Maybe he could find a job that took them a considerable distance out of town.

"If we go after him in public, he'll see us coming," Suzanne said comfortably. "Then our only option will be to make a scene. Colonel Lynch has proven that time and time again."

Hannibal smiled.

"Colonel who?"

Suzanne sighed audibly. "Never mind." Her voice was cold and professional, but it was clear to Hannibal she thought very little of people who didn't do their research and come prepared.

He frowned as he listened to her final instructions to finish their search and let her know what they found. She wasn't expecting to find anything. Even if she was, she'd been hoping to catch him here, not form a police case against him. There was no need to look for evidence of anything in particular. He had to wonder, somewhere in the back of his mind, if they even had a valid warrant. He wouldn't put it past her to play dirty.

She'd managed to be everywhere he turned for the past two weeks. The fact that she'd found his apartment - his safe house - was troublesome. Of course, it was only fair. He'd known where to find her almost since her arrival in LA. He'd just never considered her enough of a threat to warrant a visit. Instead of feeling threatened, he'd spent the past few days amused as hell by her determination.

A slow grin spread over his face. He couldn't figure what the hell she was planning to _say_ on the off chance that he fell into one of the traps she kept setting and they met face-to-face. But it was beginning to progress out of the "amusing" stage and into "annoying." Maybe, finally, she did deserve a visit from him.

 **January 21, 1968**

Tired and sore but still painfully aware of the adrenaline coursing through his veins, Hannibal was looking forward to a shot of whiskey - or whatever passed for it in this hole-in-the-wall camp - and a full twelve hours of sleep. The welcome back he'd received on his return had been no less than what he'd expected and twice as much as he would've liked - congratulations and handshakes and plenty of people to meet. As his reputation improved among the soldiers on account of his strong and seemingly invincible team, so too did his support increase.

Checking in with the commander of an FOB was normally an acceptably informative meet-and-greet. The few days they spent prepping for a mission was equally comfortable. But by this time, coming back after five days on the other side of the wire, he was just cranky and wanted to be left alone by Captain Rikland and everyone else. So when the voice cut through his thoughts of winding down with all the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning, it was everything he could do not to groan out loud.

"Colonel Smith?"

Steeling himself, Hannibal made sure he was the picture of calm before turning to greet the young sergeant. In his twenties, dark-haired and physically fit, he wasn't unlike many other soldiers Hannibal had seen - unscarred and seemingly unscathed but secretly traumatized for life. The soldier stood straight and tall in the doorway of the bunker and offered a hand as he stepped closer.

"Sergeant Devon Young," he introduced. "I don't think we've met."

Hannibal swallowed any comments about how that was probably a good thing and simply shook the man's hand. Then, with a brief but longing look at the bunk where he'd already deposited his pack, Hannibal gave him every bit of attention he could spare.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, realizing only belatedly that he hadn't answered the introduction in kind. It didn't matter. He could tell by the enthusiasm that he was already known to the young man.

"I heard a rumor," Young said, standing at ease but still clearly tense and aware of everything around him. "Quite a few of them, actually, about this team you run."

Hannibal grinned in spite of his mood. "Don't believe everything you hear," he answered simply.

"Oh, they're good things," Young quickly corrected, then frowned. "Mostly."

With a raised brow, Hannibal waited to see where this conversation was going. A long hesitation preceded Young's eventual explanation. "I knew Breaker in high school," he finally said, catching Hannibal slightly off guard. He wouldn't have guessed the two of them were so close in age. "I... understand your team had a bit of a rough start."

Hannibal was careful not to flinch. Rumors were bound to fly about the shady circumstances surrounding his team's first mission, and he wasn't surprised when he caught bits and pieces at various camps. It would have been an exaggeration to say the rumors didn't affect him, but he'd learned to handle the discussion of his "rough start" with grace, even when he was tired.

"You might say that," he replied coolly. "But we've certainly come a long way."

"So I hear." Young smiled, more relaxed now that the difficult part of the conversation had passed. Moving his hands to his pockets, Young slouched a bit. "I know you can't talk much about what you do, so I'll just tell you that I've heard you're a small reaction force taking orders directly from General Westman - an advisory team, so to speak."

Hannibal nodded, still not sure why Young thought it was necessary to elaborate on his job description. "Think of it as sort of an open secret," Hannibal replied as patiently as he could manage.

"It's the kind of team I'd love to be a part of."

Caught off guard by the forward request, Hannibal blinked in frank shock. Of all the things his exhausted mind had considered the kid might want, that hadn't even entered into the realm of possibility. A new jolt of adrenaline - the result of being startled by an unexpected turn of events - had him reaching into his pocket for a cigar. Tipping his head, he studied the young man with new eyes.

"Got any experience in recon?" he asked.

"The same training we all had at Fort Bragg," Young answered honestly. "But I've done plenty of patrols."

Hannibal kept his expression neutral. Patrols were no preparation for work across the border, but that wasn't his primary concern. "How much active combat have you seen?" he demanded.

Without flinching, Young straightened his posture as if offended by the question. "I know how to handle myself, if that's what you're asking," he replied with confidence. "And my request for transfer to CCN is in process."

"Is it?" Hannibal raised a brow, impressed by the kid's initiative.

"Even if you say no," he clarified, "I've gotta get out of this camp."

Eyeing him carefully, Hannibal finally lit the cigar between his teeth. "Why?" he asked, curious about what the kid was running away from - or toward.

"Because it's the same damn thing," Young replied, "day in and day out."

Hannibal chuckled, shaking his head as he pocketed the lighter again. "Never heard an a-camp described that way," he admitted. "In fact, I was warned you guys get shelled most nights."

"Yeah," Young answered dryly. "We do. And I keep thinking one of those nights, I'm going to get taken out for no good reason."

With a shrug, Hannibal took a step back and sat down on the edge of the bunk. "Well, if you're trying to avoid getting 'taken out', my team is probably not the best place." Tucking the cigar into the corner of his mouth, he went to work on his boots.

"I'm not afraid to die," Young clarified. "I just want there to be a reason for it."

"Defending this camp is a good reason," Hannibal replied, finally yanking off the first boot and breathing a sigh of relief as his damp, sore foot was freed.

Young shrugged. "I won't disagree with that. But I can think of a few ways I'd be put to better use. If I'm gonna die, I'd much rather go out with a bang."

"That's a good attitude to have if you're on your way to CCN," Hannibal answered. "But frankly, I've seen a lot of men with a lot more experience than you run screaming when the shit hits the fan."

Young chuckled. "Oh, I know. Difference is, I heard it from them, in graphic detail as to why that screaming was justified. And I'm still here, talking to you."

"Why?" Hannibal asked pointedly, looking up again. Young wasn't the first soldier who'd come to him with something to prove. But it hadn't happened in a while. In any case, he didn't make a habit of taking inexperienced, untrained and unrecommended kids with a death wish out into the field.

Young hesitated a moment before replying, with a new, quiet seriousness. "I talked to Breaker right before he went home."

Hannibal frowned, but didn't speak.

"I didn't even know he'd hooked up with you," Young continued, looking away. "But I thought, shit, if anyone would last on your team, it'd be him. One drop and he's gone - won't talk about it. I didn't find out about the suicide until later and that shook me up even more. But I never forgot what he said to me."

Hannibal stared back steadily, watching as the younger soldier gathered his nerve and put his shoulders back before looking him in the eye again.

"He said you weren't the reason he was going home," Young recited, clearly having rehearsed this several times before now. "He could've blamed you. God knows, everyone else did. When the word started to circulate, I heard it all from the recon teams that cycle through here. But the man who was actually there? He said it wasn't your fault - that it was an honor to serve with you and that he would've followed you to hell and back if he hadn't had a son back home who needed him."

Hannibal didn't flinch. But after a long moment, he lowered his eyes with a small nod. "Yeah," he acknowledged quietly. "He told me."

"He also said if I ever needed a change," Young continued, and Hannibal glanced up again, "that I should find you and buy you a drink. So that's why I'm here. Because I need a change and you look like you could use a drink."

The silence lingered for a long moment as Hannibal looked away. He had nothing to say to a recommendation from Breaker. And it was genuine; only Breaker would've known that lasting bonds with Hannibal could be formed over a simple drink. Finally, he took a deep breath and nodded, shoving his boot back on.

"Alright, kid," he agreed quietly, grabbing his pistol from off the cot behind him and tucking it into the holster on his belt as he stood, leaving the laces untied. "I guess I have time for a drink."

 **October 22, 1982**

Suzanne stepped out of the bathroom wrapped loosely in a towel, lost in her own thoughts. Hannibal Smith was nowhere to be found. For three days, there had been no sign of him and she was beginning to wonder if he was still in LA. Where else would he hide? Would he go to ground in some shady corner of the city where she'd never find him? He hadn't left this place in all the years since he and the team had settled here; she couldn't imagine them doing it now.

Her feet pattered on the carpet as she headed to the bedroom, lost in her thoughts. The stillness in the apartment made her take the apparent solitude for granted until suddenly, an unexpected voice cut through the silence. "Hello, Suzy."

She took a quick, startled step back, pulling in a sharp breath as she clutched the towel. Hannibal Smith was standing in her hallway, leaning on the wall with a pistol loosely in hand, almost toying with it. It took a moment for her brain to play connect the dots. Once she determined that she was actually seeing him and managed to regain her composure, her eyes narrowed.

"It's Suzanne," she corrected angrily. "And what in the hell are you doing here?"

He gave a full and entirely relaxed smile, as if she'd just invited him to dinner at his favorite restaurant. "I thought you'd be happy to see me," he replied comfortably. "After all, you've been trying hard enough to find me. Or is this just a bad time?"

She pulled in a deep breath to gather her thoughts, that momentary panic of being caught off guard finally subsiding completely as the indignation took over. The cocky bastard was playing with her. Well, two could play that game. She took a step forward - just enough to make sure she was no longer plastered onto the wall in a pose that could be misconstrued as fearful.

"You could have arranged a better way to set up a meet, Colonel," she snapped, remarkably confident considering she was wearing nothing but a towel that barely dropped below her hips. "In my experience, a phone call is far more effective and much less dangerous than home invasion."

"Home invasion?" He grinned. "This isn't a home invasion. It's just a friendly chat."

"Ah yes, you do have a very unique way of defining friendly," she said, nodding towards the pistol.

"If it was a home invasion, I'd have to say something like -" He raised the gun, pointing it at her, but his amused tone and expression gave no indication that he was seriously trying to order her around. "- put your hands up."

Her eyes honed in on his, radiating disgust. That casual tone, the complete disregard for boundaries - it made her blood boil and made her want to wipe the smirk off his face. How in the hell was it so easy for him to irritate her? Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her anger, she instead gave him a too-sweet smile. "That's very clever. If the creature roles don't work out for you, maybe you could try your hand at standup comedy." Her smile turned mocking. "On second thought, stick with the nonspeaking roles. It's much better for your mass appeal when you don't talk."

Her towel slipped a fraction, but she made no attempt to adjust it. She had bigger issues to deal with at the moment, like maintaining the confident pose and not letting it appear as though she might actually be concerned that he had her at a disadvantage.

"Now that the comedy hour is over," she continued when he didn't speak, "can we move on to what you want?"

He looked at her over the gun for a moment, then lowered it. "Well, you've been trying so hard to get in touch with me, I figured I'd do you a favor and save you some work."

"You came to turn yourself in?" she retorted, brow raised. "How nice! I don't suppose you would be willing to handcuff yourself for me, would you?"

"No," he replied, confirming her suspicions that such cooperation would just be too good to be true. "But I am willing to hear you out if you have anything of particular importance to say."

Already tired of this conversation, she sighed. "You already know what I want."

"And you know what I want," he retorted.

Tipping her head to study him curiously, she put one hand on her hip while gripping the towel with the other. "No, actually, I don't," she admitted. "Is there something I can help you with? Or were you just bored and decided to pick a law to break at random?"

"Start by telling me what the Agency wants with me," Hannibal answered, ignoring the loosely veiled insult.

"My boss just wants to talk to you," she said for the hundredth time. "Plain and simple. They want you to clear up some questions about what happened in that village."

He didn't even pause to consider the possibility that she might be telling the truth. "That's what the debriefing was for," he reminded her dismissively.

With a glare, she crossed her arms in front of her, ignoring the fact that her towel came partially undone in the process. "Apparently, they require more information than what they currently have."

His gaze raked her; no doubt he was getting an eyeful. That didn't bother her in the least - in fact, in a worst case scenario it would only offer a mild distraction for him - but it was a bit irritating to confirm once again just how chauvinistic the man was. She was a piece of meat who happened to have a brain - if he would even afford her that much - and definitely not the other way around. At least, that was how he looked at her. Even so, the more he was distracted, the better her position was.

"Well, given all the trouble you're going through to get your answers," he said lightly, finally dragging his wandering eyes back up to her face, "I hope there's at least a promotion in it for you."

"I take my satisfaction on a job well done," she smiled defiantly.

He nodded, and pushed off the wall, taking a few slow steps toward her. "Well, try to understand, honey."

She raised a brow. Honey? Was he serious? Or had she somehow found herself in a Sam Spade movie?

"It's my daily routine to avoid people like you. And I've been doing it a _lot_ longer than you've been hunting people like me."

He was so focused on her, he didn't even consider the open doorway to the bedroom as he passed by without so much as a glance inside. And he looked ever-so-surprised when a fully dressed and fully armed man stepped out into the hallway behind him and pressed the business end of a pistol right against the back of his head.

"Don't. Fucking. Move," Luke ordered.

Although he covered his surprise well, Smith complied, instantly frozen on the spot. A wry, satisfied smile crossed Suzanne's lips.

"It's nice to see that even with all that experience, there are still opportunities for you to learn," she mocked. "Guess we'll find out if you can teach an old dog new tricks." Her eyes never left him as she reached out one hand, palm up. "Your gun please, Colonel."

She kept a safe distance as she waited for him to hand over his weapon, so that she would have time to react against any sudden movements. Annoying or not, he had proven himself to be more capable of turning situations to his advantage.

He was no longer smiling, except with his eyes. But even so, he didn't seem the least bit intimidated as he handed over his pistol, holding it by the barrel. "Take good care of it," he said lightly. "I expect you to hand it back to me in the same condition."

"As soon as your meeting is over," she clarified.

He only smiled.

Keeping her eyes on him, she spoke to her partner. "Luke, can you take it from here?"

"Up against that wall, Smith," Luke said in response, undoubtedly relishing the opportunity to be the man in charge. "Put your hands behind your head."

If he was expecting any resistance, he didn't get it. She dismissed Smith without so much as a second glance as she made her way to the bedroom to quickly put on some clothes. She didn't doubt Luke's ability to maintain control of the situation when he was armed and Smith was up against the wall, but experience had taught her it was better not to trust Smith as far as she could throw him.

Despite the fact she was only wearing a towel, Suzy was damn near strutting. He had let his arrogance get the best of him, and she had capitalized on it. And winning always made her smile. By the time she re-emerged, her prisoner's hands were cuffed behind him. The only problem she could see was the smugness he wore in spite of it, as if he had something up his sleeve.

She was growing to hate that smugness...

"Handcuffs are an extremely becoming look on you, Colonel Smith," she mocked.

Luke was not impressed or amused, but Smith grinned at her. "You like handcuffs?" he teased.

"I adore handcuffs, when you're in them." She smiled sweetly.

"Too bad we're on opposite sides. We could have a lot of fun."

He was grinning at her, even as Luke shoved him roughly in the direction of the apartment door with an authoritative, "Get moving."

Suzanne opened the front door as Luke grabbed the keys off the hook on the wall and shoved Smith forward. He didn't resist as he was led by the arm down the stairs. He didn't even give a token struggle as Luke shoved him into the back of the car and shut the door hard.

Luke waited until she was in the passenger seat with a gun trained on their prisoner before climbing into the driver's seat and fiddling with the keys. Smith smiled at the gun, and at her. "So tell me. Does your boss want me dead or alive?"

"I intend to keep you alive, Colonel," she assured him. "As they say, dead men tell no tales."

"Well, that's comforting," he retorted, as though he had ever felt the slightest hint of worry. He was too arrogant for that, she knew.

"I'm glad I was able to allay your fears," she answered.

Frankly, although she wasn't entirely sure what to do with him now that she had him, there was no doubt he needed to remain alive. If he was lying, he needed to be brought to justice. If not, and there was corruption built deep into the agency she had sworn her allegiance to, he was her best chance of getting to who was responsible for what happened in that village. She'd turn him over, sure enough. But she had no intention of letting him disappear once he was in CIA custody. That meant she would be violating several rules and running a huge risk - which she neither wanted nor trusted involving Luke in. Best to keep her intentions to herself.

She kept the gun on him, her grip not overly tight but not so casual that it would easily be knocked out of her hand. For all the hoops she'd had to jump through thus far, she was almost a bit disappointed with this anticlimactic end. She'd arrested him in her own apartment. He must have been watching for a while, so how could he have missed Luke? That was a third grade mistake. Was he really that easy? He was many things, but amateur wasn't one of them.

Luke was still fumbling with the keys. "The hell?"

She kept her eyes on Hannibal, but could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up at the first indication that something wasn't going as smoothly as it should. "Is there a problem, Luke?" she demanded.

"Where's the key to the car?" he asked, bewildered.

Suzanne spared a quick glance in his direction, just long enough to see the confusion on his face. This wasn't the first time he'd driven her car; finding the key should not have been an issue. He held the ring up, looking through the keys again.

"It's not here," he finally concluded.

Okay, so much for third grade. She didn't know why he would go through the trouble of confiscating her car keys and then letting himself get caught, but it still wouldn't get him out of those cuffs and this car.

"Colonel," she said with an almost playful smile, "you can either tell me where the car key is, and we can have this discussion like dignified adults, or we can waste time hide and go seek and then have that discussion. Either way, you will not be going anywhere that I don't want you to."

Hannibal raised a brow. "You mean you don't carry a spare set on you? Now _that_ , Suzy, is a rookie mistake."

She really hated that arrogant aura he had. It made her all the more determined to not raise to his bait. "My keys are on the dresser," she shot, casting a quick glance at Luke. "I will stay with our _guest_ while you go and get them"

"Alright." Luke glared, but didn't turn to look at Smith. "I'll be right back."

As Luke left, she distanced herself from Smith. Even cuffed, she wouldn't put it past him to try something. Leaning against the dash, she managed to put the maximum amount of space between them while still keeping a bead on him. "That's a very cute trick, Colonel," she said sweetly. "Ineffective, but cute. Did you learn that from watching The Little Rascals or Our Gang?"

He was still smiling. "There are valuable lessons to be learned in _every_ avenue of life."

She raised her brow slightly, choosing not to pursue the conversation anymore. He may have caused a delay in transport, but she was still in control. In spite of the fact that he was watching her with a confident smile, she intended to make certain it stayed that way.

"You could stand to take a few lessons you know," he taunted.

"I'm always open to new learning experiences," she replied. "However I think I'll take my life lessons from someone who has proven themselves to be a bit more of a challenge."

She was gloating, and she knew it. It wasn't at all like her, but she couldn't help herself. It felt _good_ to beat him at his own game.

"Okay." He gave an exaggerated shrug. "But you may want to take notes on this."

She frowned. The taunting tone was a warning. He had something up his sleeve.

"What happens," he asked as if posing the question to a kindergarten class, "when a metal holding chamber of highly flammable liquid comes into contact with a small explosive?"

Her eyes narrowed at him. What the hell was he getting at? All teasing and enjoyment fled her thoughts as the question sunk in. Behind that air of amused confidence, Suzanne was suddenly very aware of how clever and dangerous he could be. Quickly, her brain tried to figure out what he was planning. The only weapon he had access to was the gun she had in her own hand. If it had been his gun, Smith could have potentially booby trapped it. But she was holding her own gun, and there was no way he'd booby trapped that.

"What are you trying to -"

The explosion that stole the remainder of her sentence was massive enough to rock the entire car and blow out both passenger side windows. There was no time to react, only to shield instinctively from the incoming glass. The back driver's side door opened and by the time she dared to look up again, there were only handcuffs, a bobby pin, and a small black box with a switch and an antenna on the back seat. Ears ringing from the noise of the blast she shouted, "Damn it!"

Stumbling out of the car, she kept her gun drawn in front of her, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. The car beside hers was in flames, and she stood staring at it in shock for a long moment. Heart pounding, every sense became hyper focused on her surroundings. Moving quickly but cautiously, she started towards the back of the burning car; Smith _had_ to be close by. No way was she going to let him get away. Suddenly, he bolted from the _front_ of the car - not the back where she was expecting him - on the other side of the heat wave and smoke that would blur her shot. But before she had a chance to determine how best to follow him around the side of another pickup truck, a second explosion - this time from her own car - shook the ground. The few steps back she'd taken saved her from being touched by the flames. But she still had the heat and flying glass to contend with.

Shielding her eyes once again from the heat and debris, she recoiled instinctively, then forced her eyes open against the heat and smoke. She couldn't see him, much less fire off a shot. Had he just tried to kill her? No, she quickly concluded. If he wanted to do that, he would have blown her car while she was still sitting in it, stunned. He was playing a god damned game.

She gritted her teeth as she suddenly realized that whether or not her harm had been his intent, he'd just destroyed her car. That took a lot of nerve, and it pissed her right the hell off. Whatever constraints she had observed before under the guise of professionalism, they were all a memory now. She would hunt him down and make him pay if it was the last thing she did with her career.

The truck he'd run around had been backed into the parking space, putting the driver's side door on the opposite side of her position. The door opened, and before she had a chance to come much closer, it was squealing out of the parking space, burning rubber. Her bullets hit the tailgate, and the back window. It shattered out, but he didn't even sit up until he was a good 50 yards away. At that distance, and in the swerving truck, her bullets didn't hit anything more. She let out a scream of frustration as he squealed out of the parking lot and into the street, and had the gall to reach one arm out the window and wave at her. Then he was gone, leaving her alone in the midst of two flaming cars and the smell of burning rubber.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

 **October 22, 1982**

Suzanne had no major injuries to speak of. A little reddened and scraped, she was all kinds of angry, but only knocking Smith off his high horse would fix that. An FBI badge - handy in such circumstances - gave her permission to stay on the scene, and the CSIs were almost friendly, expressing the proper amount of concern for her non-injuries but overall just there to do their job.

"Let me guess," the lead investigator began. "You wanna know how he did it."

The man standing in front of her wore a smile - but it was worlds apart from Hannibal's cocky grin. He was almost sympathetic but not quite; just another day in the office for him. His question was redundant and unneeded, but pointing that out would not get her a favorable response. She had just spent hours sitting around the charred debris of her car waiting for his conclusions while Luke excitedly discussed the evolving computer intranet of the LAPD with local law enforcement.

Swallowing her anger at the whole situation, Suzanne fell safely into default mode: cold and professional. Putting on her business mask, she smiled. "I would appreciate that."

"Well..." The man held up a bag with the small box- blackened by the fire. "This detonator was most likely what set off the charge on the gas tank of the other car. In my... expert opinion."

She blinked slowly, keeping her expression neutral. He didn't have to be an expert to figure that out and they both knew it.

"It's small enough," the investigator continued, "that he probably hid it in the joint of the seat. Maybe also where he hid his lock pick, assuming you frisked him before you put him in there with the cuffs on."

"My partner did," she said dryly. "He didn't have anything on him except the gun."

The gun was the part they still had - like a consolation prize. Suzanne clenched her jaw as she fought to keep her anger hidden. From the moment the son of a bitch had waltzed into her place, he had completely played her. That smug smile and cool demeanor should have given him away; no one was that calm when they were arrested, no matter how many times they'd been to jail. Not unless they knew they weren't going to make it there. How could she have been so stupid? Her mind was already swirling with all of the things she would have to do differently next time.

"Alright," she said, keeping her voice level and controlled. "What was the ignition source in the other car?" _Her_ car, she recalled with clenched fists.

"Oh, that one's even better." He almost chuckled at that, but cut himself off with one glance at her expression. He held up a wire coat hanger. "We found this under the car. And inside the gas compartment, we found what looks like the remains of... something. Maybe fabric? Cotton balls? We'll know exactly when we get it back to the lab but in any case... My guess is that he stuffed whatever it was into the gas tank, then lit it himself when he got out of the car. He had enough time to get away while it burned down before it got far enough to catch the fumes."

She stared, shaking her head slowly. _Son of a bitch!_ He had been right there, not even trying to run. Within reaching distance - definitely within shooting distance - if she had just been quicker to figure things out.

"Seems almost simple," the investigator said. "But he definitely planned the hell out of it."

Jaw set, she nodded slightly. "Yes, apparently he is rather good at that."

Luke was holding a hand over his eyes, shaking his head slowly as the investigator finally wandered away from them. "This guy is something else," he observed. "Brilliant, really. How do you deal with him?"

She stared at the remnants of the vehicles and frowned deeply. "I apprehend him" she said darkly. "And this time, when I get him back in handcuffs, I make damn sure to take away all of his toys."

It didn't matter what that meant, or what it would cost. She was going to get that man if she had to rent a car, rent a plane, hell she would steal a goddamn tank if she had to. Once she had him, she would strip him down, put him in a casket and transport him in a hearse. Now it was personal.

 **January 31, 1968**

"Any particular reason you want this one?" Westman asked, seemingly amused by the request on his desk.

Hannibal sat down, making himself as comfortable as possible in the plastic chair opposite his commanding officer. "He came recommended," he replied simply.

"And yet he's never done a recon drop in his life," Westman pointed out.

Glancing away briefly, Hannibal nodded. "Recommended by Breaker," he clarified before looking up again and providing the name Westman would better know the man by. "Lieutenant Jones."

For a long moment, Westman stared back. Then, finally he nodded. Leaning forward, he carefully folded his hands on the desktop. "How are you holding up, John?" he asked seriously.

"Fine," Hannibal replied without thought.

"No, I mean really," Westman pressed. "You suffered a hell of a blow and right out of the gate, too. A lot of teams don't come back from something like that."

Still unflinching, Hannibal stared his CO straight in the eye. "Mine does," he said firmly. "If you want to send me for a psych eval, if that's what this is leading up to, then go for it. Otherwise, just let me do my job."

Westman nodded slowly and finally sat back. "Alright," he replied. "I will send you for a psych eval. You and every member of your team."

Flopping back in the chair, Hannibal gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "Oh, come on, Ross..."

"Before I commit even one more man to your charge," Westman said firmly, "I need to know that you're -"

"What?" Hannibal interrupted, rising and pacing a few steps away. "That we're all coping with death? In case you didn't notice, there's a war on!"

"Yeah, there is," Westman answered. In his forced tone, Hannibal could see the beginnings of frustration simmering beneath the well-practiced calm. "And it's not easy explaining why men in war would be at greater risk from their own bullets than Charlie's. You're getting a psych eval. And so are your men. And so is this Young - _if_ you still want him."

"Why wouldn't I?" Hannibal demanded with a glare over his shoulder. "You think he won't hold up to it?"

"I question the sanity of any man who'd volunteer for the shit you do," Westman replied. "But that ain't the point."

The chair scraped on the broken floor as Westman stood and headed for the door, pulling it open before Hannibal made any move to follow. With a wave of his arm, Westman invited him to leave. "You can pick up the paperwork from my secretary," he instructed. "Once I get the results, I'll pull your man from CCN."

Jaw ticking with tension and bridled anger, Hannibal rolled his shoulders back and marched defiantly past his superior without exchanging any further pleasantries or insults. He'd known it was coming sooner or later. The only question was whether it was simply a matter of covering all the bases to keep Hannibal's team legitimate or, as seemed more likely, to regain Westman's confidence. One way or another, it grated on Hannibal's nerves to know that in spite of their success in their past few drops, there wasn't a damn thing he could do to prove they were still just as good as he'd always said they would be.

 **October 24, 1982**

Something was wrong. The world was rocking and even in his sleep, Hannibal knew it would've taken a hell of a lot of alcohol to make him this unbalanced. Awake instantly, he sat up and looked around him at the paneled walls, trying to re-orient himself in the small, unfamiliar room. It wasn't his apartment, or anyone else's. It was much smaller - just wide enough for a full size bed and a narrow walkway beside it. And everything was rocking and creaking.

The memories came back quickly, but fit together slowly. He wasn't drunk; he was in the sleeping cabin of the mid-sized boat Face was currently borrowing - safer than his compromised apartment and both less obvious and more comfortably private than a seedy motel somewhere. Well, at least the rocking had a suitable explanation.

Hannibal lay down again, on his back, and put a hand over his forehead, staring up at the ceiling. A sliver of light came through the tiny window near the ceiling. What time was it? He glanced around for a clock, but there wasn't one in the tiny room. Shutting his eyes again, he drew in a slow breath and wondered what had startled him awake. It couldn't have been the rocking; he'd gone to sleep with that...

"Face?" he called out, but there was no answer.

After letting a long moment pass, he stood and threw on a pair of jeans over his boxers. There were only a few steps through the tiny kitchen to the back deck. Peering out carefully, he blinked in surprise. They were moving, out on the ocean. Hannibal stopped cold and did a full sweep of the cabin, turning all the way around. Face got too seasick to actually take the boat _out_ if he could help it. Sure enough, Hannibal was alone. The helm was vacant.

After a brief pause for a yawn, he turned and calmly walked back, retrieving the pistol out of the bedside table. He walked out onto the back deck and studied the ladder up to the fly deck with caution. Although he appeared relaxed, he was well aware of the potential threat in this situation. He had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there, and the fly deck was a good place to hide - out of sight and with an easy target should Hannibal poke his head up through the hole in the floor to investigate.

Looking around, he saw no sign of the shore. How far out was he? The boat's motors weren't going. "Hello?" he called, shielding his eyes as he looked up to the fly deck. But no one replied, and he heard no sound but the quiet creaking of the boat on the softly-lapping waves. He climbed the ladder just to make sure, but no, he was alone. And, he discovered as he ventured to the helm, without keys.

Out the front of the boat, he could see the shore in the distance, probably a few miles away. More interesting was the tugboat he seemed to be attached to. Hannibal chuckled as he caught a glimpse of the woman stepping out of the cabin, checking her gun with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She just didn't give up. Under her arm was a bullhorn, ready to announce her presence. Well, now, _this_ would be interesting.

Keeping low and out of her sight, he stepped back, and slowly snuck around to the steps leading down to the lower bunks.

 ***X*X*X***

This time, Suzanne's plan had gone off without a hitch. They had hooked up Smith's boat and towed it out of the harbor without so much as waking him. At the three mile mark, she'd stepped out of the cabin of the tug, leaving Luke and the boat's captain at the controls. Now that they where this far out, it was safe to give Smith a wakeup call. He was too fond of dramatic getaways, and he was good at them. But out here, three miles from shore, there was nowhere for him to run. This time, she had him. And she had every intention of _keeping_ him.

Gun at her side, she stepped to the aft of the boat and turned on the bull horn. "Ahoy, Colonel John Smith!"

Lowering the bull horn slightly, she searched for any signs of life, heart rate speeding up in anticipation of the look on his face. But nothing stirred. If she hadn't been watching with her own two eyes when he boarded early this morning, she might have wondered if he was in there. Most likely, he was watching from somewhere, trying to find an escape route. Suzanne knew for a fact there was none. She and Luke had debated having one of them board his boat, but in the end decided that was too risky. After his little stunt with her car, he had proven himself to be quite dangerous in close quarters. It was better this way - tow him into open waters while he was unaware. He would have no time to plan or lay traps, and could either agree to her terms or try a standoff, which he would lose.

Smiling, Suzanne held the bull horn up again. "Colonel Smith, you are in open waters and under arrest. There's nowhere to run."

She frowned at the lack of response. Fine. They'd do it the hard way.

"Prepare to be boarded, Smith!"

There was only _one_ way in and out of the boat's cabin. He would have to come though it at some point. And when he did, she would have two guns on him - hers and Luke's. The colonel had at least one weapon of his own, she was sure. But if he used it, he was as good as dead. Smith was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them.

Watching the boat again, she checked for movement. Once they tethered alongside, Luke would come out on deck and take over surveillance of the boat while she prepared to board. But then, suddenly, Smith appeared, shirtless and shoeless, and smiling as he leaned on the ladder leading up to the fly deck.

"Hello, Suzy," he greeted pleasantly. "If you wanted to board me, there are much nicer ways to ask."

She watched him and his ever-so-casual demeanor very carefully. He acted as though he was just out for a pleasure cruise. But he would have a gun in the back of those shorts, she knew. She had yet to see him without a weapon. Not that it made much difference now. The thrill of the hunt was drugging as she cornered her prey. Not taking her eyes off of him, she called back, "I'm glad to see your impending arrest has not affected your disposition."

What in the hell was taking Luke so long? Perfect plan or not, the last thing they needed was to give Smith time to plot. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the rifle Luke would use to cover her. She could use that to force Smith into submission now, but that would be showing her hand. And pointless. She needed him alive. It would be much easier all around if she didn't bring him in with extra bullet holes.

"Put your gun on the deck, Smith," she ordered. "Slowly."

It really didn't matter if he complied or not. At this distance, and on the waves, a hand gun was pretty useless. She used it as a litmus test to see how willing he was to cooperate. Anyone else would see they were trapped. But it was impossible to guess what he was thinking.

He chuckled. "Now why would I want to do a thing like that?"

So much for compliance.

Reaching into his pocket - definitely not enough room in his pocket for anything dangerous - he withdrew a lighter and torched the end of the cigar resting between the fingers of his other hand. He puffed on it a few times before sticking the lighter back in his pocket and tipping his head, eyeing her curiously. At this distance, and over the waves, he had to yell to be heard. But he was still perfectly casual somehow.

"I might consider it," he baited her, "if you said please."

Of course, he was playing a game. What else could she expect from him but a game? Even here, miles from shore with no one to help him and nowhere to hide, he still acted like he was the one holding all the cards. Setting the bull horn down on the bench, Suzanne didn't bother to answer. She wasn't playing this time. Eyes never leaving her target, she called to Luke, "Let's go. I want to get him locked down."

Every ounce of her focus was on Smith; all of her senses needed to be fully engaged when dealing with him. She saw - too far away to hear - Hannibal chuckle as he took a step toward the railing, leaning on it with one arm, and watched her with amusement. "Hey, Suzy, your bosses ever tell you what my trained specialty was back in Vietnam?" he asked before adding as an afterthought, "Besides the medical, because that was sort of a necessity. Not the one I really enjoyed."

"Demo," she answered reflexively. Of course she knew that.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of her neck stood up as she realized what she'd just said.

He laughed. "Good guess!"

There was no time to think. She simply followed her gut instinct, lunging for the rifle in the instant he moved. The gun was a 30/30 with a sniper scope, accurate for about 150 yards even in the water. But before she had a chance to lift it, the man had taken one step toward the open cabin door, tossed his cigar inside, and in one sweeping movement, turned and dove overboard. He'd just hit the water when the explosion knocked her straight on her ass as flaming debris projected in every direction from Smith's boat. The tug was tossed violently and she gripped the side just to keep from flying across the deck and possibly tipping overboard. Deafened by the roar from the flaming ball of wreckage, she couldn't even think, much less put all the adrenaline-ignited reactions in some semblance of order.

Several more explosions rocked the tugboat so hard, she could do nothing but cling to the rail with one hand and the useless rifle with the other. By the time she managed to claw her way back to an upright position, what had been Smith's boat was now scattered over the ocean in flaming bits, the bulk of it quickly lowering into the depths. For a moment, she could do nothing but stare in jaw-dropped amazement - not only at what he'd just done but at the fact that he'd managed to catch her off guard once again. What the hell was he thinking? Where did he think he was going to go now?

Scanning the surface of the water where Smith had dove in, she saw nothing but the waves and falling debris. Then, suddenly, she saw his head pop up and arms begin to move. Her amazement turned to a ball of tense, frustrated energy in the pit of her stomach as she realized the son of a bitch was going to try and swim for shore. Oh _hell_ no! She was _not_ losing him now! She'd drag him out of the water kicking and screaming if she had to!

From somewhere behind her, she finally heard a loud string of, "Jesus mother fucking Christ! What the fuck was that?" and realized it wasn't accompanied by the sound of the tug's engine.

"Get this boat moving!" she ordered, putting the rifle aside. As much as she would've loved to shoot him, her only option at this point would be to actually kill him. "The son of a bitch is swimming for shore!"

"Engine's dead," Luke answered, shocked by the sight of the debris as he stepped out beside her. "It must have caught some shrapnel. Are you okay?"

Lifting her foot and pulling off her shoe, she used the rail for balance in the still-rocking boat. "I'm going to fucking kill that man," she grumbled under her breath.

Luke stared in wide-eyed shock as she pulled off her other shoe. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going after Smith," she answered forcefully, as if this should have been obvious. "Cut the tow line before that damn thing sinks us and radio for help."

As he stared at her like she'd just lost her mind, she set her pistol on the deck. There was no point in bringing it, since it wouldn't do her any good after it hit the salt water. Besides, she had the knife. She was up on the bench when she glanced back from the plummeting wreckage and saw Luke still standing there. "Jesus, Luke, get it together!" she yelled. "Cut the line and call for back up!"

She didn't have the time to deal with him right now. Executing a beautiful dive off the side of the boat, she left him to either follow her instructions or swim for it himself. His cry of "Suzanne!" was the last thing she heard before hitting the water.

Smith's pace was not strenuous. But with the waves and the sudden exertion and adrenaline expenditure - not to mention the blinding, burning salt-water in her eyes and the current dragging them parallel to the shore - it took her damn near three hundred yards to catch up with him.

"You blew up your damn boat?" she cried, with as much force as she could manage while still keeping her head above water. "What the hell is wrong with you! First my car and now your boat; what are you, some kind of serial bomber?"

"It was a rental," he answered casually, not bothering to look at her as he made smooth, even strokes through the water.

"A rental!" A wave splashing into her face filled her mouth and eyes and nose with salt water and she sputtered for a moment, eyes burning like hell, before she continued after him. "Jesus Christ, how did you _not_ get sectioned 8? I need to reread your psych evaluation because obviously they _missed_ something!"

"Psych eval?" He laughed. "I haven't had one of those in over a decade. Maybe I should arrange another one?"

She wanted to scream as he taunted her with his tone. How the hell did he manage to make her _so_ angry? "Good thinking! Maybe they can prescribe something for you!"

"I'll have them send you a copy," he taunted, his tone light enough to be used over morning coffee. "Maybe next time it'll give you an edge."

His nonchalance gave her new levels of frustrated fury - and therefore new energy - beyond what she had ever experienced in her life. "I am really going to enjoy bringing you in, Smith!" she screamed, finishing just as another wave crashed into her face and left her coughing and choking.

Hannibal laughed, somehow managing to turn his head away in time to avoid the same near-drowning. "Not today, you're not."

She realized as she swam, pulling against the current that was dragging them down the beach, that she was still wearing her watch. Again, she wanted to scream. That was a nice watch, damn it! She wanted to take it off and throw it at him, but she had to keep swimming hard if she wanted to keep up. Not to mention the fact that she could well and truly be dragged out to sea and die if her energy gave out. With this in mind, she fed the fury that kept her going.

"You owe me a car _and_ a watch now!" she yelled.

"Put it on my tab," he replied between calm, even strokes.

Oh, how she wanted to slap him. "You're over your goddamn credit limit!"

It was fucking hard to swim in a business length skirt. She took a minute to reach down and pull it up, allowing herself a better kick. "Hey, Esther Williams!" she called out as she fell behind a few paces. He slowed and glanced back, affording her a chance to catch up. Somehow, maybe instinctively, they both knew they were more likely to survive if they were together.

"What in the hell did you think that little stunt was going to get you?" she demanded as she pulled alongside him.

"My daily exercise?" he suggested.

Another wave gagged her, and she spat saltwater, blinded but hoping they were heading in the right direction. "Have you ever considered jogging?" she snapped when she was able. "Or maybe jazzercise? You know, something less insane?"

"There's nothing more invigorating than a good morning swim," he answered enthusiastically. "Really gets the blood flowing. And the water's so nice and warm."

Warm? Was he kidding? The temperature of the water wasn't her first concern while trying to stay afloat. It wasn't icy, but it sure as hell wasn't warm. "Yeah, well, flaming wreckage can do that!" she shot back.

She was quiet for a few paces, concentrating on keeping up with him, glaring daggers into the back of his silver head. Her strength was beginning to wane, and she didn't know how far they had to go yet. For the first time since she'd vaulted over the side of the tug, she truly contemplated her own mortality and the first flicker of fear set in.

"You know," she managed, trying to kick up the adrenaline again, "a little open ocean swim isn't going to stop me or save you, Smith."

But even her own voice sounded weak in her ears. She wasn't entirely sure he'd even hear her over the roar of the waves. Thought not entirely spent, she wondered how she was going to make it to dry land when she couldn't even see the shore over the waves yet, and she could feel the current pulling at her.

Smith had slowed. In fact, he looked to be treading water, watching her. The tiniest flicker of concern in his eyes was quickly masked by that insufferably smug grin. Half-drowned and facing the same mortal danger she was, still he acted as though he owned the world.

"You sound awful confident for someone who's having a hard time keeping up," he mocked.

Her anger flared, igniting her all over again. Blood singing in her veins, she yelled back, "I am _not_!" and pressed toward him with renewed vigor. She'd drown him herself if she could just get her hands on him! How the hell was he so much older than her and yet better able to keep up this strenuous pace?

"Save your breath, Suzy," he warned, adding insult to injury as he pulled ahead again. "You're going to need it if you expect to have any energy left to drag me off to prison."

Determination renewed by a fresh wave of thoughts about how his arrest might proceed once they made it to shore, she pressed on. But she did stop talking. This was going to be one hell of a long swim.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

 **October 24, 1982**

Hannibal was tired when he pulled himself to shore, and not exactly sure where he was. The current had carried them so far from the docking harbor, it was hard to tell which secluded beach they'd found, but the road up ahead would probably be the coastal highway. He needed to get to a phone and call Face, but his legs weren't going to carry him too much further than that. A three mile swim in the ocean waves would have been strenuous on a normal day. Add in the current and it felt more like ten.

Sitting up on his knees in the sand, he looked back over his shoulder at Suzanne, making sure she made it onto the shore. Before he could determine whether she was swimming, stumbling, or crawling, a wave swept in on her, knocking her face first in to the surf. Half a second later she was standing up on shaking legs, breathing heavily as she struggled to the shore. Her long hair was plastered to her skin, and the running mascara made her look like a raccoon. The blazer she'd been wearing was long gone, and the white button down shirt was bunched up, stuck to her skin, and completely see-through. Even as tired as he was, Hannibal grinned at that. The fact that her skirt was hiked up to the tops of her thighs was an added bonus. She really did have nice legs.

She was about twenty feet from him when those nice legs gave out and she finished the distance between them by crawling on hands and knees. Even through the exhaustion, he could see the anger and determination and he chuckled briefly. The quick moment used up all the energy he could spare.

Turning around, he sat down with his knees bent, leaning forward while he caught his breath. Damn, he was tired. The only consolation was that she was more tired than he was. And that was, in fact, one hell of a consolation.

"Still got those handcuffs, Suzy?" he taunted, not looking up. "Or did they fall into the ocean somewhere?"

She was close; he could hear her labored breathing over his own. There was also the feel of warm metal as she pushed the cuff on his wrist, locking it much slower than normal. She was barely able to kneel, but still tried to get the other cuff onto his opposite wrist. Her movements were slowed by fatigue as she panted weakly, "You're… under... arrest."

He found the energy to laugh. Then he lifted his head, stared at her for a moment, and grabbed her wrist. It took minimal effort to push her onto her back, and he pinned her wrists on either side of her head. It wasn't going to take any effort to keep them there, either. He didn't think she had the effort to lift them if he hadn't been holding them with his weight.

Too tired to keep the exhaustion out of his voice, there was still a slight smile on his face as he looked down at her. "You know, it really is too bad... we're on opposite sides... of the law."

"Oh... Oh yeah?" she gasped back. "Why... Why's that?"

He paused for a few deep breaths, then leaned down, letting his lips just brush her ear as he spoke. "Have to admire a woman who can keep up with me."

Suzy was still struggling to get her breath, and judging by the way she had gone still, she had already spent her last ounce of adrenaline and energy trying to cuff him. She blinked slowly as he pulled back, but barely able to keep her eyes open, she didn't even so much as turn her head.

"I can... more than… keep up… with you."

She meant it as a threat, but she was too tired to pull it off. Instead, it only made him smile. "I don't think so." He dropped his head down to whisper in her ear. "But I love to watch you try."

Using all the strength and determination he could muster - do-or-die experiences in the wars he'd fought in had taught him a lot about the false perceptions of "limits" - he pushed himself up and slowly onto his feet. The first few steps were the hardest. After that, he had only to keep moving, leaving her to nap on the warm sand before eventually - probably in a few hours - she would get up, and try again.

 **February 6, 1968**

Sitting on the edge of his thin and lumpy cot with needle and thread in hand, Devon Young marveled at the fact that since his recruitment onto Hannibal Smith's team, he had done more sewing than he'd ever done in his life. He was currently moving the pockets from the pants of his fatigues to the shoulders. Wounded soldiers never landed on their shoulders, Hannibal had explained, and morphine stored in a shoulder pocket was more easily accessible than in a front pocket. Devon did his best not to flinch at the thought of shooting himself up with morphine if the need arose and he was truly alone enough to have no one there to help him do it. It wasn't the pain and certainly not the needle that scared him. But perhaps the one thing worse than dying needlessly would be to die alone...

His sterile uniform was significantly different from the one he'd worn since joining up. The camouflage was a mess of black spray paint over plain army green and the B+ on his lapel indicated his blood type. His dog tags had been confiscated, as well as the name tape and patches that identified him as an American. The pack he would take with him carried no food and only one canteen of water. Weapons, ammunition, hand grenades, and bandages took up all the space he had. He was startled by all he had discovered about the way the SOG soldiers operated, following a set of rules and procedures that stripped them of the basic rights other Americans - even American soldiers - cherished. Most of the men Devon had met considered the day when they might be reduced to name, rank, and serial number with a healthy amount of horror and foreboding fear. But the Special Forces soldiers didn't even have that. They were no one, and if they went missing, no one would know or care.

"We have a jet crash," Hannibal announced as he stepped into the room, immediately attracting the attention of all the quiet, resting men inside. Glaze, apparently asleep, was the only one who didn't give Hannibal his full attention, and the colonel kicked the wobbly leg of his bunk as he passed, startling him awake. "Two of them, actually," Hannibal continued with only a sideways glance at him as he rubbed his eyes and sat up, "in Salem House. Air Force F-4 Phantoms."

"Any chance they're still alive?" Indigo asked with a yawn, setting aside his paperback book and swinging his legs to the floor. Devon finished the last stitch and tied off the fishing line on the needle, attention fixed firmly on his new commanding officer.

"Not likely," Hannibal replied. "Big balls of flame don't usually leave survivors and the FAC didn't see anything to suggest they bailed. The Air Force is going in to try and recover them, but there are too many enemy in the area."

"What area?" Devon asked, hoping it wasn't a stupid question.

"Salem House is Cambodia," Glaze explained, stretching and standing up on wobbly legs. He passed Devon a smile. "Ready to get your feet wet in the big kids' pool?"

"Alright, load up," Hannibal ordered, cutting the banter short. "We'll be briefed in Dak To but we're racing daylight."

As the team grabbed their gear and headed out, ready to move at a moment's notice, Devon shrugged on his newly sewn shirt and frowned at the way the pockets were bunched up in some spots and loose in others. Sewing was not his strong point, apparently.

"Are you ready for this?" Hannibal asked pointedly, far more serious than Glaze's teasing.

Devon smiled and nodded. "Balls of flame and too many VC for any sane person to risk an extraction?" he summarized, grabbing his pack and threading the needle into the top of it before shrugging it on. "Sounds like a day at the beach, Colonel."

Hannibal chuckled, clapping a hand over his shoulder as he passed. "Remember that when it's time to swim for your life," he encouraged. "If we're lucky, we'll all live to see another day."

 ***X*X*X***

With an impressive team of Montagnards on loan for the mission, Hannibal and his men were divided into two choppers for the trip from Dak To into the northern portion of Cambodia. According to their full briefing, the downed plane had overshot a bridge, smashed into a hill with a fiery explosion, skipped across to a second hill and finally deposited on a third. One good thing about the whole mess: it shouldn't be hard to find.

Hannibal's gaze lingered on Young, staring out the side of the chopper at the ominous sky in the distance. It would storm today, somewhere to the south. Hopefully they would avoid any of that unpleasantness where they'd be setting down. At four thousand feet, it was hard to tell just how far away those dark clouds were.

Somewhere deep inside where Hannibal rarely allowed his thoughts to go, he worried. He and his team had all passed their psych evaluations with no difficulty, but that was to be expected. It wasn't hard to figure out what they were expected to say - the right amount of painful acknowledgment and grief mixed with a perfect measure of "I'm okay, you're okay." There was no place for wallowing in pain or loss. Friends died and this was simply a fact that all soldiers accepted. It was nobody's fault, and proper placement of guilt didn't really matter. The enemy made for an acceptable place to unload all of one's angst in the form of M-16 rifle rounds, and that was the end of it.

Whether or not the Army psychiatrist - or Westman, for that matter - was convinced of his healthy state of mind, it didn't really matter. Hannibal was used to lying, and used to being okay. But staring at the boy who sat staring out at the emerald-green jungle below, a boy with less experience than he could even remember having, he worried. If he wasn't okay, if he was sacrificing this boy to his vanity, he wasn't sure he could lie convincingly enough to cover that up. Or that he'd want to.

No bullets tore through the thin, aluminum skin of the helicopter on their descent into the LZ. Hannibal could see the ever-growing network that made up the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the bridge the Air Force jets had been trying to take out. The scorched path from where the jet hit the first hill and trailed to the next confirmed what he already knew: survivors were extremely unlikely. It was just as well. He'd specifically asked for a run-of-the-mill assignment to break in the new kid.

It was no surprise when the choppers couldn't land in the dense jungle. Hannibal and the men in his chopper - Indigo and the newly-recruited Young, along with two Montagnard soldiers - climbed down first, hand over hand down the aluminum ladder. Their boots came to rest in thick, black soot that lined the dirt and choked them with every breath. Wiping it out of his eyes, Hannibal wordlessly led the men off to the side as the second chopper hovered, swirling soot and ashes in a tornado around them.

Blind and nearly deaf from the typical descent pattern of the helicopter - climbing high and then dropping quickly to deposit the troops before the enemy could organize any RPGs to fire on them - Hannibal crouched on the ground and wondered somewhat helplessly if the clogged-up noise he heard was from the sticks and debris showering down on him or the sound of people walking around. Here, it would either be NVA or the local indigenous people forced and coerced into working with them. The wait was agonizing before the second chopper lifted away and the soot began to settle. Glaze and Schooner made their way over, along with the three Yards following them.

Indigo radioed Covey to ensure that the A-1 Skyraiders and Cobra gunships were standing by if needed. Then RT Canon moved downhill, following the scorched trail of the jet toward the next hill. There was no sign of the plane itself - only burnt out jungle. As Hannibal scanned the area, he was both pleased and surprised to see that the area appeared remarkably quiet. With as much warning as they'd had about enemy in the area, he'd expected a more difficult insertion.

Running point, Hannibal led the team down the easy-to-follow path until suddenly, he caught sight of a bamboo building ahead. Instantly, he raised a hand to signal to those behind him, and the entire team stood stock still and searched for movement anywhere around them. They were moving silently now.

About 25 yards ahead, the bamboo building stood five feet off the ground in the traditional custom of the indigenous population. Next to it was a graveyard with several freshly-dug graves and an enormous communist star over the ramshackle entrance. Bunkers loomed beside the cemetery, scorched and damaged where the jet had chewed through the enemy village and spit it out in a mangled mess of havoc and devastation.

Hannibal saw no reason to pick a fight with the villagers. They had a job to do, and they could afford to go the long way around. Carefully avoiding the village, he kept an eye on the cleared patch to his right, probably a truck parking area or an NVA parade ground. If not for the tied-together tree branches that almost completely hid the grounds from overhead view, it might have made a good LZ.

Suddenly, his eyes stopped moving as they came to rest on three enemy soldiers peering over some bushes, staring directly at them. At least one had an AK in hand - he couldn't see the other soldiers' hands - but they weren't firing, only staring. A quick whistle and hand signal got the attention of his team and communicated his order to hold fire. If these guys were going to shoot at them, they would've done it already. Hannibal and his team had been seen, but the enemy - undoubtedly able to deduce why they'd come - seemingly had no interest in a firefight. As Hannibal nearly tripped over a jungle boot with a severed foot still inside, he confirmed the suspicion raised by the graveyard; the enemy had lost a few soldiers in the crash, too. But that wasn't the sort of thing that typically made them friendly. Either their forces were too depleted to take on the team or, more likely, they were hatching a plan to take the Americans prisoners and simply kill off the Yards.

Debris from the jet littered the ground as the team moved forward: parts of the fuselage and wings, broken pieces of what Hannibal thought was an ejection seat and unidentifiable bits of mangled metal. At the crest of the second hill, Hannibal saw several squares of cleared ground where the flaming jet had plowed through enemy hootches. Those structures that had escaped the destruction were vacant. Outside of the crash path, Hannibal carefully studied the artistry of the woven bamboo and jungle vegetation that covered the surviving hootches, making them invisible from the air.

They found the jet's two engines, broken off when the F-4 hit the first hill. The momentum had carried them over the second and a few hundred yards to the bottom of the third. Silently surveying the scene, Hannibal paused to listen to the first hints of enemy trucks moving on another branch of the train a few hundred yards to the left. Then, suddenly, a Cobra gunship roared over the team out of nowhere, strafing the path behind them with rockets and 20mm fire. The explosions and clangs and cries of enemy soldiers made the entire startled team hit the dirt, pulling in close to each other as Indigo called Covey on the radio.

"What the hell is going on!" he demanded.

Hannibal could already feel his adrenaline starting to flow as he crouched beside Indigo. Those rounds had hit metal, caused explosions, and startled more than just the team. The FAC confirmed what he already knew. "You're being chased by probably two hundred NVA with trucks and armored cars," the voice came over the radio. "And be advised: the weather's closing in. We've got about thirty minutes of fuel left and we're running out of ammo. Time to pull out."

Hannibal growled as he grabbed the radio. "I can see the jet," he said. "It's another three hundred yards or so, but I need time!"

Covey responded quickly and urgently, the tension in his voice mounting with every word. "If we don't get you out of there, we're going to have to pick you up in the morning."

Hannibal swore under his breath as he shoved the radio back into Indigo's hands, then turned to survey the burnt framework of the twisted, supersonic Air Force jet on the next hill. He didn't want to return to base empty-handed, but the hardened look on Indigo's face startled him out of those thoughts of shameful failure and grounded him in what was really important.

"They're dead," Indigo said firmly. "Either that or they're captured but they sure as hell ain't in that jet. Not with this many gooks around."

He was right, and Hannibal knew it. Even if they'd been captured, they were probably dead now. US airmen elicited a special kind of hatred from the enemy on a normal day, and these particular pilots had plowed through any number of people and hootches, dealing a powerful blow even in their defeat.

"Schooner, Indigo, Glaze," Hannibal directed, "take three of the Yards through the village and see if you can find any signs of our guys or any intelligence on the NVA here. Young, you stay with me and the other Yards. We're going to try for a slash and burn on the far side of the hill."

The team moved quickly and efficiently. With one eye on Young and his rifle at the ready in case the enemy came too close, Hannibal tried to clear a landing zone that would at least allow the choppers to come close enough to use the ladders. It was only a matter of minutes before the team converged again, carrying enemy supplies and empty medicine bottles and a shirt with a Viet Minh medal pinned to it.

"No sign of any Americans, boss," Glaze reported as Indigo called for the extraction.

It was only a matter of a few short minutes before the first helicopter began descending toward RT Canon. Hannibal felt the wind from its rotors at the same instant that he saw the NVA soldiers come crashing through the bushes toward the team, yelling and screaming. He didn't have to tell his men to return fire. They held back the wave as he took the radio from Indigo and called up to Covey again.

"Have the runners shoot 360 around our perimeter," he ordered. "Then I need the Cobras and Skyraiders strafing both sides of the chopper on descent."

The aluminum ladder was a welcome sight as the pilot brought the chopper to a hover above the team. As soon as it was within reach, Glaze and Schooner jumped on and hooked up, facing out toward the enemy and returning hostile fire as the chopper lifted them and three of the Montagnards up and out of the jungle. Both door gunners on the Huey spat M-60 rounds into the massing NVA troops until they were too far to do any good. Then they were clear and the second chopper came in for descent.

Left on the ground with Indigo, Young, and two Yards, Hannibal concentrated all of his adrenaline-soaked focus on the relentless NVA pushing through the bushes, firing AK-47s, SKSs, and B-40 RPGs toward the remaining quintet of RT Canon. The Yards knew their stuff; they concentrated heavy gunfire into the bushes where the biggest groups were gathering to rush in. Taking a fraction of a second to wipe away sweat from his forehead, Hannibal's fingers came back red and he realized he was bleeding from somewhere. He couldn't feel a thing through the fight-or-flight sensual overload. It wasn't from a bullet; he was pretty sure he would've noticed that. More likely, he'd been hit by the flying debris from the close gun runs or shrapnel from the RPGs. Casting a quick glance at the rest of his team, he confirmed he was not the only one bleeding.

As the second helicopter approached, ladders hanging from each side, the door gunners leaned out and blasted the NVA troops with their M-60s. Hannibal and his men joined the effort, and the first thoughts of escape and what it would actually feel like to pull away from this carnage began to bubble up under the surface. Overlaid by the sheer necessity of focus in order to stay alive, those thoughts never really had a chance to boil over before a sudden, rapid _bang! bang!_ rose, deafeningly loud, above the rest of the noise. This time it wasn't gunfire. The helicopter's 24-foot-long rotor blades had caught a tree.

If he hadn't been so busy trying to survive, Hannibal might have taken the time to wonder how the hell the chopper remained in the air with the main rotor blades chopped off. The blades and the branches, leaves, and sticks they took out showered down on the team as the pilot somehow managed to keep the Huey in the air. Bloodied and running low on ammo, Hannibal yelled for his team to go, waiting until they had all hooked onto the ladders before grabbing on himself, never stopping the quick bursts of fire into the enemy soldiers. As they lifted away, he scrambled up the ladder and vaulted to the cockpit.

"Look down to your left at seven o'clock," he ordered. He knew the pilot was busy, but he needed visual confirmation of his find by someone outside of his own team. "You can see where the jet wiped out a bunch of hootches when it crashed."

Reassured by the quick, "Yep, I see it," that the pilot would confirm his report, Hannibal moved back into the cargo area and to the open side of the chopper, where Young was still pulling himself up. Casting only a quick glance at the boy to confirm that the bleeding head wound was not nearly as bad as it looked, he looked back down toward the crash site. He could see the jet lying on its side, and knew in that moment that the remains of the pilots who had died in it would never be returned to their homeland. The mission had failed, and it set heavily in his heart. But considering the outcome that could have been, he couldn't really complain.

"You okay?" he asked Indigo, who was trying to staunch the bleeding on an impressive cut across his forearm.

"All good, Colonel," Indigo answered dismissively.

Casting a glance at Young, he received a tight smile and a thumbs up that almost made him laugh. The mission might have failed, but at least he'd gotten the chance to prove the kid on the ground. Unshaken and more interested in the cut on Indigo's arm than his own blood-matted hair, Devon Young had passed with flying colors. It would be a small consolation as Hannibal returned to CCC to tell the crew of the other jet that their friends had not - and would never be - recovered.

 **October 25, 1982**

"You're not still irritated, are you?" Luke asked, just shy of patronizing as he looked over Suzanne's shoulder at the carrots under the sharp knife she was currently using to vent her frustration. The cutting board was getting the worst of it, and the idiotic question went unanswered.

"You really need to relax," Luke tried again, his smile audible.

Her grip tightened around the handle of the knife. "Now is not the time," she warned, hearing the invitation in his voice.

But he only chuckled. "Oh, come on," he persisted. "They say sex is a good way to vent frustration."

Closing her eyes and drawing in a deep, slow breath, she flexed her fist around the knife before setting it down carefully and slowly turning to face him. He should've known from the look on her face that the warning had been for his benefit. She knew full well how much frustration she stood to vent, just as she knew there was no way in hell he could take it. Luke was the awkward and intellectual type, quite placid on a normal day and even more so on the few occasions he'd tried to talk her into bed - only halfheartedly, and never with any true expectations. It was a game they played - more amusing for him than for her, she suspected, since he was the one with the poorly-concealed crush. Sometimes it was like middle school all over again. Other times, like when she was really freaking irritated and wanted to hurt something, it was worse.

"Alright," she said calmly, gripping the end of the counter and leaning back slightly against it.

He blinked in shock and confusion as the unscripted response left him scrambling for something more to say. After several false starts, the best he came up with was, "Huh?"

"Go for it," she invited, her tone more biting than she'd intended. "Amaze me with your sexual prowess."

He didn't know what to do, what to think. That was no surprise, and it wasn't really fair to put him on the spot. But he was right. On a basic and instinctive level, she really wanted to fuck something - someone - and release all of her pent up energy and frustration and anger and everything else she was not used to feeling in such massive amounts. She'd spent most of her life sexually frustrated, but this was a new feeling altogether. She refused to even give consideration to the fleeting thought that there was a specific someone she wanted to take that frustration out on.

There was nothing in her even remotely close to love or adoration for Hannibal Smith. Even "attraction" was not the word for what she felt, sexual or otherwise. The man was a certifiable pain in her ass. But that didn't help the tension balled up inside of her to find a healthy way of venting. The bedroom was one place where she knew she excelled, and she'd be damned if anyone - even Smith - would get the best of her there.

The thought made her almost shake with anger before she banished it. Never in a million years would she allow that to happen; it was a vain and fleeting consideration of a fantasy never fully formed. But as Luke stammered his way through an excuse as to why she couldn't possibly mean she actually wanted him to fuck her in the kitchen of this shitty apartment, a lingering thought persisted that Hannibal Smith might be the one person she wouldn't be afraid of _breaking_ if he were to try it.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

 **October 27, 1982**

Suzanne didn't bother with the disguise this time. She walked through the front door of Mr. Lee's shop only seconds after the man who was likely to be their next client had left. Hannibal hid his amusement very carefully as he watched her skirt around the table full of odds and ends, piled high in organized chaos. She just never gave up.

"Sorry," he greeted her, "we closed."

"Yes, I know," she said directly, never breaking her stride as she came closer. "And you know nothing about the A-Team. But I need you to get a message to Smith for me."

Well, that explained the envelope she was setting on the counter. She stood still, watching him with a mask of professionalism, waiting for him to make a move. He eyed her first, then the envelope.

"What message?" he demanded.

Without flinching, she continued. "He and I need to talk."  
"He no want talk to you. He tell me himself, tell you to go away." He shrugged as he turned away from her, walking towards the back of the store. "I not talk to you. Good bye."

"Listen here, Mr. Lee." The anger rang in her voice, professional or not. "My supervisor is willing to fly all the way to Los Angeles to talk to Smith because he wants answers to questions that I don't have. It took a lot of finagling to make that happen and before it does, I want to speak to him _alone_."

Hannibal paused, and slowly turned, careful to stay hunched in the guise of Mr. Lee, and studied her.

"I'm well aware he doesn't _want_ to talk to me or my superiors." Her tone was cool once again, but her body language gave away the anger she was still feeling. "But I am proposing an equal exchange of information."

It was the fact that her voice had dropped lower that gave away just how much it had taken her to say that. He stopped, and turned slowly back to face her, crossing his arms over his chest. "What make you think you have information he want?"

Suzanne's eyebrow rose at that. She was more confident in this answer. "Because he's already asked me for it."

He gave a brief, mocking laugh. "That before you chase him all over town. Blow up his boat. Missy not know who she dealing with, I think."

Her eyes narrowed in on him. That intent stare was looking for something, assessing him. "Yes," she answered coldly. "And it was the fact that he was willing to blow up his own boat that convinced me I was getting nowhere with those methods. Which is why I am here now."

He watched her quietly, evaluating her as she drew in a deep, calming breath.

"Everything I have on him," she offered, "for his side of the story."

She had folded her arms to hide the fact her hands were clenching into fist. Was she feeling defensive, backed into a corner? Or was she just trying something new?

His look turned to amusement. Time to push a few buttons and find out. "Missy got nothing he not already know. And you ask for a lot."

That comment seemed to hit home. Her jaw clenched as she leaned forward, unfolding her arms, keeping her hands clenched into fist at her sides. "I'm risking my job for what I ask!"

"So?" He turned away again. "It good for him, you lose your job. Good bye, Suzy."

That name was all it took to tip her off. He'd known it would be. But it was just so damn much _fun_ to pull the cat's tail that he was ready to handle the consequences. They came fast. In a flash, she had her gun. "You son of a bitch!"  
He barely hid his laughter as he ducked around the thick bookshelves just a few feet from the back steps leading up to the loft above the store. He quickly removed the bits of the costume that were sure to be in his way, and grabbed the pistol out of the back of his belt as the first few rounds went through the bookshelf over his head.

"Aw, come on, Ms. Alvine," he teased. "Or should I say Lansfield? What's a little masquerading between friends?"

"I want to know what the hell happen in that goddamned village, Smith!" He could hear the anger in her voice. Of course the rounds she was firing out helped drive that point home. As she stopped firing wildly, he could hear her moving, tripping her way through the store, changing position.

He looked up to the full length mirror positioned purposefully by the back steps. He could see her moving. It was a lot more than a hop, skip, and jump to get through the maze that was Mr. Lee's store. He'd made it that way on purpose, with a grin, and smile in place, he stood, turned and looked around the corner of the bookshelf at her, ready to duck back if she started shooting again.

"You know," he goaded, "you're strikingly attractive when you're angry."

Two more shots came in low. She either wasn't aiming to kill him, or she was a lousy shot. He suspected the former. When he ducked she was moving again, closing in on him. "Anyone ever tell you you're a pompous son of a bitch?" she demanded.

He laughed at the sound of another shot. "It's been said at least once."

She was too busy being pissed off to count her bullets. Sooner or later she was going to run out. Besides, if she wanted to talk with him, she wanted him alive. He wasn't all that worried about being shot. He watched in the mirror as she grabbed the first thing she could grab off the counter – which ended up being a chipped vase – and threw it at the last place his head had been.

Her angry cry echoed in the sound of the exploding pottery. So was so mad she was sputtering. "This is not a fucking joke!"

A book whizzed past him, and then a wooden bowl. In the mirror he could see her moving again, throwing everything and anything she could reach. He laughed again, and tucked the gun back into his belt. He didn't need it. She wasn't providing any real threat. She was throwing a temper tantrum.

"Joke or not, it _is_ pretty funny." He talked towards the wall, letting his voice bounce off of it, letting her think he was further away than he was. "You've gone through a lot of trouble just to throw vases at me."

"Damn you!"

As she came within striking distance, he moved, grabbing her wrists and trapping her against the side of the bookshelf with a hard thud. The gun fired into the ceiling before he twisted it out of her hand and tossed it aside, pinning her hard.

"So tell me," he said low, smiling. "What are you _really_ after, Suzy?"

She was too mad to even attempt to speak, but the fury on her face spoke volumes. Fueled by adrenaline, she tried for a head butt. If she'd connected, she probably would've broken his nose and a couple of teeth, or maybe even his upper jaw. Luckily, he had time to step aside, letting her stumble over her own momentum and then spinning her around. He shoved her face first into the wall this time and she hit hard enough to lose her breath for a second.

Wrenching her arms behind her, he breathed into her ear, "You know, Suzy, as a rule, I don't like to manhandle women. But you make it _very_ easy to turn civil conversation into a contact sport."

"You?" she sputtered furiously. "Civil conversation? That's the first funny thing I have ever heard you say."

"Is it?" he asked in mock confusion. "But you're not laughing."

Growling audibly, she writhed again, to no avail. "Believe me, I'm laughing on the inside."

As she finally stopped struggling, he pressed in close until he could feel the warmth of her body even through his shirt. "You should've gone for the knife, Suzy."

"I didn't want to deprive you of the opportunity." She was trying to sound threatening, but she failed. It was impossible with her breath coming so shallow.

Holding both her wrists with one of his much larger hands, he experimentally ran the palm of his other hand along her side, over her hip, and down to her thigh until he felt the band through her skirt that held the knife's sheath. He smiled to himself at the slight hitch in her breathing.

"Would you like me to get it for you? Maybe you can use it to intimidate me into following your orders?" He leaned in closer, lips almost brushing her ear, watching for her response. "Because I certainly wouldn't need help getting you to follow mine."  
Nothing changed in her posture. The only indication that she even heard him was the shiver that he felt run down her spine. It was the quietest she had been since he'd met her, but he could feel her breath catch. If not for the fact he was pressed against her, he would have missed it. He paused, looking at her curiously, leaving his hand right where it was, loosening the grip of his other slightly.

"Cat got your tongue, Suzy?"

The sudden, sharp intake of breath as his fingers brushed the bottom of her skirt made him smile. He didn't move his hand any further, just watching her, enjoying her reaction. She wanted him and she probably didn't even understand why.

"You really should think about getting an ankle holster, you know," he suggested. "It might be a little less awkward next time I disarm you."

Suzy seemed frozen underneath him, not even breathing. It wasn't until he went to pull her knife free of its sheath that she reacted. Very suddenly, she jerked her arm free and twisted, jabbing an elbow into his stomach. Her other hand grabbed the butt of his gun, tucked into the back of his pants. Using leverage from the wall, she shoved him hard enough to make him stumble, then raised his own gun to hold him still in its crosshairs. Several deep breaths and he could see the professional Suzy take control again.

He toyed for a moment with the thought of his surroundings. There were enough weapons in this room – and he knew how to use them – that he wasn't exactly helpless. He knew of at least ten ways to kill her in five seconds even if she _did_ shoot him. But he was so accustomed to having and setting aside those thoughts that he barely acknowledged them. Besides, that gun was only going to do her any good if she was willing to use it. He knew she wanted him alive.

"What are you going to do now, Suzy?" he asked, putting his hands up. "Shoot me?"

"Make a move towards me," she threatened, "and I _will_ shot you."

"I wouldn't dream of it." He grinned.

"I came here to offer an even exchange," she said calmly. "Everything I know about what the Agency has on you in return for your side of the story. But you just can't do anything the easy way. I would think you'd jump at the opportunity to explain yourself."

"You would be wrong," he pointed out. He had absolutely no interest in explaining himself to her or whoever it was she'd gotten her orders from. The only interest he had at the moment was an assessment of the threat that the agency she represented might pose.

"Well, since you want to do it the hard way," she snapped, "and you already have your hands up, guess I'll be taking you out of here in handcuffs."

He chuckled. "Now, I don't know if I'm feeling quite _that_ cooperative."

"Sorry to hear that Smith," she replied bitterly, "but your decision making privileges have been temporarily revoked."

She was moving slowly and carefully, keeping him in the gun sight as she made her way to the phone. He lowered his hands, and she didn't try to stop him. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he advised, nodding toward the phone.

"I know _you_ wouldn't," she growled, "but don't even _think_ of doing something cute."

He had picked up the knife from the table next to him and flicked it in her direction in the same movement. It landed a half inch to the side of her hand where it was resting on the phone. Perhaps more importantly, it severed the line running from the wall. By the time she looked up, he already had a second smaller, rusted knife off of the table behind him. He'd known right where they were, even in the mess.

"Now, Suzy, I have no desire to use you for target practice." He smiled politely. "And we both know you won't shoot me. So how about we put our respective weapons down nice and easy."

She cocked the gun. "After you."

He chuckled. "Oh, I insist."

"Over my dead body," she growled.

A slight shrug was all the intimidated fear he had to offer. "I'd rather not."

A quick bark of laughter was accompanied by a mocking smile. "You wouldn't have a chance."

"Don't underestimate me, Suzy," Hannibal replied, amused by her confidence.

She growled as he leaned closer, not quite a step. "Drop the knife or I drop you."  
He smirked. "You wouldn't dare."

Without so much as a blink, her aim shifted just slightly off center and she pulled the trigger. He was stunned by the sound of the gunshot before even he felt the pain. The bullet hit right where she had aimed – the upper part of the arm holding the knife. His hand tightened harder around the knife as the force of the bullet turned him slightly. He'd be damned if the well-cultivated survival instinct would permit him to let it go even if he'd _wanted_ to.

As the pain registered, he found himself blinking at her, momentarily stunned. Had she just shot him? The pain would seem to be a clear indication that she had. That was... interesting.

"Drop the knife, dumb shit," her voice was cold. "Or the next round goes in your ass." She gave him a small smile. "The idea of me causing the pain in _your_ ass for once seems somehow fitting."

He didn't have a chance to respond. The opening door - from the back and not the front - was a distinctive, creaky sound that immediately alerted her to an intruder. He knew who it was, but he was still so caught off guard - was it safe to say he was amused? - by the fact that she'd actually shot him, he had no real reaction to the arrival of Face and Murdock. There was no time to call out any kind of warning, and the sight that greeted them as they stepped into the shop must have been quite a shock. In any case, it surprised Suzanne enough to give Hannibal the fraction of a second he needed to reach for the pistol hidden on the third shelf of the bookcase.

Face's gun was out instantly and pointed at her just as soon as the scent of blood hit him. "Drop it," he warned her, low and serious. "Now!"

Suzanne rolled her eyes, muttered a soft, "Damn it," as she found herself looking down the barrels of two pistols. She put the gun on the counter and her hands went up without anyone having to tell her. There was an air of resigned calm about her, as though she wasn't the least bit surprised that once again, he was getting away.

It took Hannibal a minute to pull it together, helped in part by Face's abrupt, "Hannibal, are you alright?" Setting the gun down, he finally transferred the knife to his good hand, stuck it in the wooden table, and took a few steps toward her, picking up his own weapon where she'd set it down.

"Nice talking to you, Suzy," he said as smoothly as he could now that the pain was really starting to set in. His arm was screaming.

She stared at him blankly, clearly confused, searching for any indication that he was trying to entrap her somehow. "You're letting me go?"

He chuckled softly. "Why wouldn't I?" he asked, carefully tucking his gun away again. "I certainly don't need you as a hostage."

Her eyes were a bit wider than normal, but she knew better than to speak again. He made a point of stopping to pick up the envelope she'd brought. Folding it into his back pocket, he walked between Murdock and Face to the back door, holding his hand over his bicep to try and stop the blood flow.

"Let's go, guys."

Without a word, they backed out after him, eyes still wide and adrenaline still pumping as the blood loss began to take its toll and Hannibal nearly missed a step.

 **October 27, 1982**

The bullet had gone clean through Hannibal's arm. Had it been a slightly smaller caliber, it might have counted as a graze. But bullets from a Colt 1911 had a tendency to make a big hole in whatever they hit. It wasn't quite enough to justify a hospital visit, but it was enough to cause a hell of a lot of blood flow.

If there had been any other place to perform a medical procedure, Face would have chosen it over this motel room. Dingy, tiny, and dirty - Face would have been surprised if it had seen a healthy dose of bleach since the Nixon administration. He didn't want to touch anything, let alone close up Hannibal's arm in a place like this. But at the moment, it was the closest available safe place they had. If he lost much more blood, he was going to need a transfusion.

Hannibal took a seat in the desk chair while Murdock opened up the first aid kit. Face put on a pair of gloves before pulling away the blood-soaked shirt Hannibal was holding over the wound.

"You really know how to pick 'em," Face grumbled under his breath.

"I'm actually impressed," Hannibal said. "I didn't think she had it in her."

Face glared at him. Of course he would be amused. It shouldn't even be shocking at this point. He turned away and shrugged out of his coat, draping it on the bed. On his way to the sink, he slipped off his tie and rolled up his sleeves.

Murdock had the first aid kit open and was sorting out what would be needed. "Who was that woman?" he asked. "Your new lady friend?"

In the mirror over the sink, Face saw Hannibal grin. "Nice, huh?"

Although Murdock smiled back, it was clearly forced - an effort to play it cool in light of Hannibal's injury. "I take it she's playing hard to get?"

Hannibal either didn't notice the tension - or the anxious look in Murdock's eyes - or he didn't care. Given the slight swoon in his efforts to move, Face guessed it was the former. "We're currently working on our communication skills," Hannibal quipped, closing his eyes.

Face grumbled under his breath, not amused. "I'll give you communication skills," he grumbled over his breath.

At least this place had soap. Of course it had probably been here for years since they'd replaced it, after the last person who'd used it.

"I think you two need some more work," Murdock suggested. "Want me to see if Richter can fit you in?"

Hannibal chuckled. "I don't know if we're quite ready for couples' therapy yet, Murdock. We have to _want_ to change first."

"I guess it all depends on what you're looking for in a woman. I like ladies who can dance. Face," Murdock jerked his thumb in Face's direction, "likes ladies with a pulse. You like lades who aren't afraid to fill you full of lead."

"Funny, Murdock," Face said dryly.

Murdock beamed, seemingly reassured by Hannibal's genuine - if woozy - smile. "And, of course, BA likes ladies who cuddle."

"Specifically," Hannibal said, "I prefer ones that don't aim for the heart. So see?" He smiled at Face in the mirror. "She's perfect!"

Face looked for a towel, spotted one on the rack that would probably defeat the purpose of having washed his hands in the first place, and decided to let them air dry. "You know, this isn't exactly fun and games," he reminded them. "She just _shot_ you."

"Oh, come on, Face," Hannibal muttered. "Learn to live a little."

"So where did you meet Ms. Perfect?" Murdock asked, interrupting any comeback Face might have made. "The local Guns-R-Us?"

"How about CIA headquarters," Face answered. "Where she was handed a file on him."

The anxiety was back in Murdock's eyes in a flash. With wide eyes, he stared hard at Hannibal. "You got the warm fuzzies for a spook?"

"I don't know if I'd call it warm fuzzies," Hannibal corrected.

"What would you call it?" Face snapped.

Hannibal was still grinning at Face. "What's the matter, Lieutenant? You sound bitter."

"Me? Bitter?" Face's voice rang with sarcasm. "Since you've met this girl, I've lost my car, fished you out of the ocean after you _blew up_ my boat - which I am still trying to explain, by the way - and now you've left a pool of blood all over the car I was just _borrowing_!"

Hannibal was beaming. "Isn't it exciting?"

Face growled audibly as he grabbed the needle and thread and looked at the first aid kit. What hurt worse, rubbing alcohol or peroxide?

"She sounds like a keeper, Colonel," Murdock said, pulling himself out of the worry with a fake-it-till-you-make-it smile. "But you may wanna see about upping your insurance coverage."

" _His_ insurance coverage!" Face cried.

Murdock didn't look at him, too busy grinning at Hannibal - a smile that grew more genuine with each passing second. "It's hard to find a woman who's willing to shoot you, but not kill you."

Hannibal's retuning smile made it clear just how proud he was of his great find. Face took a second to glare at them both as he finished threading the needle and set it down again in a capful of peroxide. Murdock had the bottle ready to go, and the empty ice bucket under Hannibal's arm. Face pulled on a clean pair of gloves and moved the shirt.

Hannibal flinched at the clear fluid on the open wound, teeth clenched, but didn't otherwise react. He kept his arm still as it fizzed and drained with the blood into the bucket.

"So did she shoot you for any particular reason?" Murdock asked. "Or is this just her way of saying howdy?"

Hannibal glanced at Murdock. "I think it was her idea of a polite suggestion."

Murdock moved the gauze to sop up the worst of the blood so that Face could see as he picked through the wound, pulling out the bits of material lodged in the flesh.

"This is polite?" Murdock asked. "Hate to see her when she's mad."

Hannibal chuckled. "Oh, she's fun when she's mad. Like a wet kitten."

"You know, for safety's sake," Murdock said, "you may wanna consider her suggestion before she's less polite about it."

"Ordinarily, I would," Hannibal replied. "Except her suggestion involved handcuffs and a trip to Langely."

Murdock frowned again, and Face almost felt sorry for him. Every time he almost got back to his happy-go-lucky self, another blow brought him crashing back into well-deserved concern. "Why's the CIA looking to take you to the mother ship?" he asked.

Face tossed the forceps with the last of the material onto the table and grabbed the needle and thread. Bullets never left a clean wound. And with a forty caliber, it was good Hannibal was enjoying this; he'd have the reminder for the rest of his life.

"Seems they're a little confused about some orders I received back in Vietnam," Hannibal explained. "According to Suzanne, they want me to clear it up for them."

"They think a wanted fugitive can clear it up?" Murdock asked, confused. "Colonel, I'm barking mad and that doesn't even make sense to me."

"Me neither," Hannibal agreed. "Which is why I'm less than enthusiastic about taking her up on the offer of a free vacation."

Both of them were watching as Face sutured the wound closed. He was no surgeon, but it wasn't exactly his first time, either. Finally, he pulled the last of the stitches tight and cut off the thread, then tossed the whole bloody mess of rags and gloves and needle and scissors on the nearby table.

"Can I make a request?" he asked, not waiting for a response before continuing. "Can we all just agree that this woman is a problem? Because there's only so many places you can be shot before it becomes an issue."

He expected Hannibal to object, to poke fun at the situation and treat it like a game - bullet wound or no. But instead, the colonel's tone was decidedly less casual and carefree when he spoke again. "She can only keep this up for so long," he said seriously, surprisingly lucid. "And the client I talked to today - if he checks out - is going to mean a week or so in Alaska."

Face understood the implication - getting out of town might be a good thing. Ordinarily, he would have been less than thrilled about Alaska. But right now, the further they were from Suzanne, the better.

"My only concern," Hannibal admitted, "is that they may send someone bigger and badder."

"Someone who aims for the vital areas?" Murdock suggested.

Hannibal nodded, refreshingly serious. "Yeah."

Face's eyes narrowed as he remained still and silent, arms across. Now that he didn't need the rant he'd prepared for Hannibal's next round of foolish dismissal, he had nothing to say. Pleased to hear the colonel talk sense - even if it had taken considerable injury to get him to this point - he waited for the conclusion.

"I need to know what this is about," Hannibal finally continued, inspecting the patched up wound on his arm. "Right now, I only have a vague idea, based on what she told me. Who knows if she even has the whole story."

"And if she fails," Murdock said quietly, seriously, "they could step up their game."

Face quietly considered the possibility of a kill order from the Agency. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, and if it happened, they would probably never see it coming. The Army had rules to follow; the Agency didn't. He'd done more evasive driving and doubling back in the last week than in the past six months. Hell, since she'd shown up, he hadn't even stayed in the same place for more than two nights in a row. The change in the car he was driving was not expected and certainly not planned, but it had the fortunate side effect – the _only_ fortunate side effect – of making him harder to track. Although Suzanne didn't really scare him, in and of herself, he had a healthy fear of the organization she represented. She was a nuisance; she wasn't the real problem.

"Taking on the CIA -" he let out a deep breath "- is a dangerous game for everyone."

"One they're forcing us to play," Hannibal clarified. He sighed. "And it's considerably less dangerous if we know what they want. I'm pretty sure I can get that information out of Suzy - at least to the extent that she knows it. I'm not sure what kind of luck I'll have with her successors."

He reached very carefully into his pocket with his good arm, and moved as little as possible as he opened a folded envelope. It was the one he'd grabbed from the shop. Face watched him silently as he ripped it open, unfolded the paper, and read slowly.

"You realize that whatever they want with you," Face said as the silence lingered too long, "it's possible that it has nothing to do with a ten-year-old mission." Hannibal glanced up and caught his stare, eyes fixed steadily as Face continued, "They didn't mind using us to _commit_ war crimes. Why would they give a damn about them now?"

With a calm, resigned nod - the most serious he had been since the whole affair started - Hannibal nodded. "The thought has occurred to me," he admitted.

"You think they'd want to use you again?" Murdock asked uncomfortably. "Now? Here?"

"I don't know," Hannibal replied, rising a bit unsteadily to his feet with a deep and heartfelt sigh. He refolded the paper without announcing its contents and slipped it into his back pocket again. "But I need to find out. Frankly, I'm not sure which possibility is worse - a kill order or a recruitment offer."


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

 **February 15, 1968**

Hannibal's team was only looking for the bodies of the missing soldiers of RT Machete. At least, that's what they'd been told at the briefing. A rather inglorious assignment, it was one that should have been a fairly quick in and out. Again, they had been told so at the briefing. It never ceased to amaze Devon Young - recently labeled "Finch" because of his uncanny mimicry of the bird's whistle - how quickly these otherwise simple missions got out of hand.

"Extract! Extract! Get us the hell out of here!" Although it wasn't panic in his voice, he had to yell into the radio just to hear himself over the chatter of automatic weapons nearly deafening him on all sides.

As he waited for the (always too-calm) response, his eyes darted to Hannibal as he dove for cover near the post of the haphazard fence line surrounding what appeared to be a grazing paddock for goats. "Alright, listen," the One-Zero ordered, clasping a hand over Glaze's shoulder. He shot a quick glance to Finch and gave him a nod. "You too; get over here."

Putting aside the radio, Finch crawled carefully to where Hannibal was crouched, ignoring the bullets that whizzed by over their heads. They were on a slight ridge here, and that gave them enough of an advantage to stay alive while they waited for the choppers.

"Here's what we're going to do," Hannibal began, then paused quickly to ask, "That extraction's coming?"

It really shouldn't have been a question. He knew his orders had been followed. Finch nodded anyways, staring at the intense look on the One-Zero's face. He'd seen Hannibal in the heat of battle a dozen times already, but the deadly look in his eyes now was something new. With no trace of fear or uncertainty, the man wasn't just trying to survive. Nor was he trying to accomplish another mission just to stick another notch in his belt. He was saving a life, and he was pissed off at the way he was being taunted.

RT Machete had been inserted 12 miles east of the Laos border - a neat and clean drop off without a hitch or concern to speak of. They hadn't been heard from since. The FAC hadn't found them the next day, or the day after. Wherever they were, they had no radio contact, and although possible mirror signals had been sighted about 50 meters from the LZ, they were otherwise ghosts. To add to the difficulty of extracting a missing team without contact, the rains had prevented a helicopter extraction on two attempts. That's when RT Cannon was called in.

The plan had been simple enough - check out the farming area closest to the LZ with hopes of capturing someone who might enlighten them as to Machete's fate. But the heat was unbearable. Suffering under the weight of their gear and out in the hot sun without even the jungle canopy for protection, the team had trudged along until coming to this spot. There, Finch had barely managed to do a quick visual sweep of the area before nearly collapsing on his face, pouring sweat and gasping for air. The six liters of water he'd carried with him were simply not enough to replace what he was losing by the minute. The normal, sweltering heat had been amplified by days worth of rain and the air was so saturated with humidity, it was difficult to breathe. It was like drowning, but on dry land.

But that hadn't been sufficient punishment for this encroachment into the enemy's territory. After only a minute's rest, they'd heard it - the sound of English, called over some distance. They knew instantly it was a trap, but it didn't much matter. English meant Americans, and they were looking for a missing team with three of them. A quick exchange back and forth confirmed that whichever man had survived thus far, he was under duress and probably at gunpoint, luring the rescue team to come closer. Hannibal didn't bite, and the VC had opened fire.

"You really think he's still alive?" Glaze asked, sweat-dripping brow furrowed.

"They've kept him alive this long," Hannibal pointed out.

"Yeah, for a purpose," Finch reminded. "It didn't work."

Hannibal raised a challenging brow. "You ready to jump on a chopper and leave him here?"

The moment of dead silence was punctuated only by the sound of bullets pummeling the ground all around them. Finally, Glaze gave a determined nod and declared, "Okay, let's go."

The plan was as foolhardy as any Hannibal had ever come up with, and not surprisingly, it broke damn near every rule in the book. Shrugging off their gear and piling it carefully at the fencepost with the hope of easy retrieval, Finch and Glaze exchanged glances, then bolted in opposite directions. In three steps, Finch cried out and with an almighty flail, threw himself to the ground as if shot. Behind him, he heard Glaze do the same. Then, drawing in a deep, calming breath, Finch pressed himself flat on the ground and crawled, slowly and flat on his stomach, towards the tree line.

The weapons fire from their side had stopped, but it was several full minutes before the enemy in the trees realized that nothing seemed to be moving and stopped shooting back. Using every ounce of stealth skill he had, Finch moved painstakingly slow through the brush, so that any movement could be mistaken for the wind rustling the tops of the tall grass. He felt naked without his rucksack even though he knew he wouldn't be able to move through the grass with it on. Covered in mud and struggling to breathe in the heat, it was still surprisingly easier to do now than when he'd been upright but carrying his pack. Of course, the fact that the rucksack weighed nearly as much as he did probably had something to do with that.

The VC weren't stupid enough to move without suspecting a trap of some kind. They waited and watched, giving Finch the time he needed to get closer. But the clock was ticking, and Finch felt it in every tense meter he moved closer to his goal. How much longer would they have before the choppers showed up? He'd left the radio with Hannibal, and the lack of communication made him feel even more exposed than the lack of his pack. Thankfully, he still had his weapon tucked up beside him reassuringly as he crawled closer, feeling an odd sense of time distortion. He had no idea how long it had been since they'd parted ways.

Suddenly, footsteps nearby made him stop dead still, afraid to even breathe. Within seconds - although they felt like hours - his heart was pounding madly in his chest. Over the throbbing of it in his ears, he could hear the enemy soldiers gibbering at each other in Vietnamese. They sounded unsure, even though Finch couldn't follow any of their conversation. Not for the first time, he envied people who could pick up languages as easily as they could read a book. It had been all he could do to gain a working knowledge of Russian - enough, at least, to pass his exams for Special Forces. His Vietnamese was hopeless. He knew only enough to understand what Hannibal's sudden cry of " _Chu hoi_!" meant.

Startled, the soldiers raised their weapons in the general direction Finch had just crawled from, and for a moment, he didn't breathe. What the hell was he supposed to do if they shot Hannibal dead, right where he stood? These daring plans always incorporated some measure of risk, but it suddenly occurred to him that if Hannibal went down, it was only a matter of time before they beat everyone else out of the tall grass. What was even more concerning was the fact that even if the choppers showed up, Finch no longer had a path to where they would set down. The enemy was between him and where he would need to be.

Still, this sort of insanity always seemed to work out for Hannibal in a way Finch had never seen. It was like a novel or, better, a comic book - full of daring feats that never happened in the real world. Realizing that he was in way over his head if anything should go wrong, it struck Devon as sort of ironically funny that he hadn't even given a second thought to following the orders that put him in this position. He was beginning to trust this man just as much as the rest of the team, beginning to work with them in tandem as a single, living organism.

As Hannibal continued in broken Vietnamese, more enemy soldiers passed by a foot on either side of Finch, converging on the surrendering American. Once they had passed, he moved with a bit more speed, sure that their attention was firmly fixed on something other than him. Just past the tree line, he paused to survey his surroundings and saw four soldiers near the badly-beaten but still-standing form of a naked American. Several figures clung to the high limbs of the trees, and a small group off to the right would be best suited for the grenades in Finch's pocket.

He prepared as he waited, making sure he had a good vantage point, observing every movement, whistling quickly and listening for the sound of Glaze's return - easily mistaken for a bird to anyone who didn't know precisely what he was listening for. When the answer came, he was ready. He whistled back instantly, and every standing member of the team moved in several directions at precisely the same time. Finch tossed the grenade and with his pistol, took out two of the four men surrounding the American before they even had a chance to lift their rifles. The other two, he hit only after they'd managed to fire blindly into the trees. With the sound of M-16 fire ringing from all directions, the team obliterated the mass of VC heading toward Hannibal the instant he dropped to the dirt. They had the element of surprise for only a moment.

As Glaze took out the men positioned in the trees, one by one, Finch bolted, grabbed the arm of the startled and confused American, and threw him into the brush where he would hopefully have the sense and reaction time to find shelter before the AK-47s' bullets found him. Finch dove for cover as well, and heard the sound of the helicopters overhead, right on cue, as the mad dash for reunification began.

There were VC - dead, dying, and yet alive - all over the open space between Finch and Hannibal. Several times he nearly tripped on them, and never paused as he put a bullet in the skull of any who looked like they were still capable of shooting at them or the choppers overhead. He didn't look back, and he didn't know for certain if their rescue had been a success. In the confusion, it was impossible to tell who was firing what weapon, which direction it was coming from, and who may or may not be hit. Vision hazed by adrenaline as much as the sweat in his eyes, he made it to Hannibal's side just as the skids met the ground, and the sound of the gunfire was drowned out by the blades of the chopper. He grabbed his rucksack and threw it into the cargo area without thought as to where it might land or a second glance at the gunners who were firing wildly into the trees.

It wasn't until he had jumped up into the chopper, grabbed his rifle, and turned to assist with the shower of bullets over the enemy that he saw the naked and injured American struggling alongside Glaze, then between Glaze and Hannibal. The covering fire never stopped or even paused; nor did the return fire. The two Hueys were loaded, lifted, and only then did Finch take a proper look at the sobbing man on the floor of the helicopter. He was incoherent, but he was alive. Kneeling beside him, Hannibal offered what Finch suspected were comforting words, then looked up. Through the adrenaline and the sheer emotion of the moment, the One-Zero gave the biggest smile Finch had ever seen.

"Nice!" he declared, shouldering his rifle and reaching into his pocket for a brand new cigar.

 **November 8, 1982**

Hannibal was more than mildly aware of the potential for a trap in this scenario. "Out in the open," like her letter had suggested, didn't really work for him. Instead, he chose to position himself by the trees in the park, with a straight shot - 20 yards - to the car and his gun in easy reach. Although he appeared casual, it was an illusion. He was acutely aware of everything that moved, and the exact angle that would give him a shot on any of it. Or maybe more accurately, since he had no intention of shooting anyone dead, the angle "it" would have on him.

He saw her pull up in a taxi and smiled to himself at the recollection of what had happened to her own car. As promised in the letter, she was alone. Her tight smile as she approached made it perfectly obvious that she was just as wary of him as vice versa.

"Colonel Smith," she greeted politely.

He nodded, returning the courtesy. "Suzanne."

The way her eyes flickered told him the use of her full name was noted, but she wasn't sure what to do with it. Good. For the time being, the more off balance she was, the better. He eyed her for a long moment, using the lingering, uncomfortable silence to keep her confidence at bay. She did a good job at covering the anxiety, but he noticed the way she shifted weight from one foot to the other and glanced around.

Finally he gestured towards the nearby picnic table in invitation. "Please."

Suzanne turned towards the table and carefully chose a seat, on the edge where she could easily get up and away if necessary.

"What's the matter, Suzy?" He grinned, noting her all-too-obvious paranoia. "Afraid I'm not going to hold up my end of this 'friendly conversation'?"

Her smile didn't reach her eyes. She was trying for cool and casual, but the tension in her jaw and the slightly clipped words gave her away. "It always pays to be careful," she replied.

His smile broadened as he reached into his pocket for a cigar, then leaned on the edge of the table with his hip. He didn't sit down – no need to get too comfortable. Besides, he could tell by the way she squirmed that his presence looming over her would have an effect.

He was quiet while lighting the cigar. Then he looked at her expectantly. "So, Suzy. Do you have something to tell me or not?"

She hesitated, the polite smile betraying no hint of amusement. "What is it you want to know?"

"What's your assignment?" he asked, cutting right to the chase.

"To establish contact and arrange a meeting between my boss and you," she rehearsed.

The reply was so instant and practiced, it made him chuckle. Taking a few puffs on the cigar, he left it in the corner of his mouth as he crossed his arms loosely. "Perhaps I need to be more specific," he clarified. "What are the _details_ of your assignment? As in, what does the Agency want with me?"

With a noncommittal shrug, she looked away. "You know the mission they want to talk to you about. What else would you like to know?"

"Just start talking," he instructed. "I'll tell you when to stop."

There was a pause as she reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. Pulling one from the pack, she held between her fingers, not yet lighting it. "The records show some inconsistencies," she explained. "You're the one who can clear them up."

Her words were business like, but he could see the effort it took on her part to maintain that air. He didn't aid her attempts. "Inconsistencies?" he repeated with a laugh. "To hear you tell it, my team and I committed cold blooded murder. What's the inconsistency?"

Finally, she lit her cigarette and took a deep inhale. "To see it on paper, you did," she replied flatly. "Maybe that's why they want to see you – to clarify your side of the story."

He gave a slight, humorless chuckle. "That may well be where _your_ interests lie, Suzy. But I doubt the Agency shares your ambition for uncovering the truth about Linh Hu Nao."

She exhaled sharply at that. Something flashed in her eyes just for a second and was gone, replaced by a hard stare. "You're right," she said abruptly. "It is what I want."

"And since I'm not interested in what you want," he taunted, "maybe you can share with me what _they_ want. Since that _is_ of interest to me."

She glared at him, too intensely to be professional. "I'm not sure what you want me to say," she retorted, too confrontational to be conceding. "All I want is your side of the story, Smith."

"So you can do what with it?" he challenged, standing up straighter. "It's not going to do much for getting you that promotion."

"What I do with it is my business," she snapped back, a bit too rough in how she flicked her ashes.

He contemplated her demeanor for a moment. If she was lying, she was doing a damn good job of it. If she knew more, she wasn't going to offer it willingly. He'd have to go beyond this "friendly conversation."

"Where's the file, Suzy?"

She raised a brow as she took another drag. "What file?"

"Your case file," he clarified. "On me."

She stared at him. He could tell she was shocked at the prospect that he would actually ask for that. It took her a few minutes to come to terms with what he actually _was_ asking. He could tell when the connection was made, because her eyes went cold. "That would get me fired, Smith."

He didn't react to that in the slightest. "Not my problem."

Suzanne exhaled a thin stream of smoke, eyeing him in the lingering silence of her consideration. "Let me ask you something," she finally prodded.

With a pleasant smile, he nodded his agreement. "By all means."

She stared at him hard, as if trying to read him but knowing ahead of time she didn't have a chance in hell. "When has the CIA ever _not_ gotten what they wanted?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"The day I walked away," he answered without thought.

She didn't flinch, but he could see the frustration in her eyes. Maybe she'd been hoping he would admit they were powerful. Or maybe she'd simply expected him to dismiss the entirety of the organization she represented as easily as he'd dismissed her. It took her a moment to find an appropriate response to the comeback she hadn't been expecting.

"If you choose not to play ball," she warned, "they will still get their meeting. It just won't be on such friendly terms."

He raised a brow. "Is that your way of saying you're not willing to share your information with me?"

"I'm not handing you that file," she said firmly. "It would mean my job if I even entertained that idea."

"Well in that case," he stepped away from the table, "I don't think we have anything more to discuss. Have a nice day, Suzanne."

He only made it two steps before she called after him. He knew she would. It wasn't hard to call her bluff when he knew how badly she wanted this.

"You know this only gets worse, right?" She was on her feet, crushing out her smoke then taking a few quick steps until she was in front of him. "I'm trying to help you here."

"I told you what I want," he answered dismissively. "Past that, I have no interest in your help."

"I've already told you what's in the file," she tried again, one last ditch effort to persuade him.

But he wasn't buying it. "I want to see it," he demanded.

He could see the debate, the fear and indecision, the frustration ringing clearly in her voice. How badly did she want to know? She was the one who'd called him here, after all.

"It's at the motel," she finally relented. Her tightly clenched jaw stood at direct odds with her detached tone. That statement had cost her. Pride, security, or control – or maybe all of the above.

He raised a brow. "Motel? I thought they fixed you up with a nice little apartment."

"They did," she answered dryly. "But after your demolitions demonstration with my car, we figured it was safer to relocate."

He smiled. "How does Luke feel about sharing a bed in a cheap motel?"

She glared at the insinuation. "A _room_ ," she clarified. "Not a bed. And you'll have to ask him."

"Will I get the opportunity?" he asked cautiously, wondering how readily she'd admit to a setup.

But she seemed to entirely miss the implication that Luke might be waiting in the wings to help arrest him, focusing instead on the awkwardness of the proposed conversation. "Is it really _necessary_?" she snapped.

Hannibal smiled. "No," he admitted. "But it might be fun."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "Your fun will have to wait," she said bitterly. "He's currently dealing with the Coast Guard and the disaster you made in the ocean."

Chances were, she wouldn't want Luke to know what she was doing, anyway. It certainly wasn't protocol, in any sense of the word. What she was _willing_ to do was an even further stretch. Given that the Agency wasn't known for putting their people in pairs to begin with it wasn't likely that she trusted him enough to let him be a witness as she put her career on the line.

"Alright," he finally agreed. He nodded, and gestured to the parking lot. "Let's take my car, shall we? Since yours is still in the shop."

"Thank you for that, by the way," she snapped at him. "I got that car for my graduation."

"Heathrow High School in Columbus, Ohio?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Because I didn't find any _college_ transcripts on file for you."

"Class of 73." She said, not giving him anything he didn't already know – nothing more than what her bogus history recorded on paper.

He smiled, and opened the door for her, then crossed to the driver's side. "I'd like you to put your handgun on the floor for now. Just until we get to where we're going."

She watched him as he waited for her to comply. "And what about yours?"

He withdrew the pistol tucked into the back of his pants and held it in view as he waited. She smirked. "No need for posturing, Colonel."

She paused with her 9-mil Beretta in plain view for a moment before placing it on the floor. He leaned forward and tucked his own under the seat before turning the ignition over and pulling out of the parking space. "Now. Which direction to this motel?"


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

 **November 8, 1982**

It took almost twenty minutes to go four blocks - and not because of the traffic. It took another five minutes of waiting in the street, watching the parking lot. Suzanne sat back and just waited. It would be pointless to tell him that he had nothing to worry about. The fact of the matter was, he had everything to worry about even on the best of days. Hell, she was only one of the many threats he was facing at any given moment. He had every right and reason to be paranoid, and it was quite obvious why he was still wearing street clothes instead of olive drab and shackles.

Finally, he shut the car off, grabbed his gun from under the seat, and tucked it back into his pants as he opened the door. She let him get out first. It was about time. She reached down and grabbed her gun, eyeing him to see if he was going to say anything about it. "Second floor," she said. "Room 204."

He gestured for her to go first. "Lead the way."

She smiled at him, not at all surprised by that as she took the lead. "Rest easy, Colonel. I'm not breaching protocol here so that we can both wind up in handcuffs."

"Suzanne, this is about as relaxed as you will ever see me," he said honestly.

His tone was light, but the words were serious at the same time. For once, he wasn't trying to push her buttons, and she didn't make any effort to push back. She reached for her key as they approached the room, and stalled for a moment before she turned back to him, the key held up between her fingers.

"You want the honors?" she asked.

He smiled. "No, by all means."

He was too busy scanning the nearby rooms for anything that looked like it could possibly be movement. And she wouldn't have really expected him to walk in first anyways. After all, there was no way for him to know what was waiting for him inside.

"I have to warn you," she said as she slipped the key into the lock, "this is a shockingly mundane hotel room."

He let her enter first, checked all around him once more, then followed her inside. She walked as he checked all the corners inside, too, and walked immediately to the bathroom to make sure there was _really_ no one else in the room. Finally, he turned towards the window, and opened the curtains just slightly as he took up a position near it, arms loosely crossed.

"No wonder you have grey hair," she grinned.

He remained silent, watching her expectantly.

The tension was not lost on her as she took a few steps to the fridge in the corner, but she didn't acknowledge it, either. "Drink, Colonel?" she asked as she grabbed a ginger ale for herself and cracked the top open.

"I'm here for your folder," he answered with a cordial smile, "not your hospitality."

She tossed him a ginger ale anyway. "They aren't mutually exclusive."

He caught it, and stared at it for a moment before opening the top. It hissed as it opened, and he watched her as he took a small sip, accepting the hospitality for the sake of putting her at ease. "Where's the folder?" he demanded once he'd fulfilled that duty.

She finished closing the fridge and put her keys on the dresser next to it before turning to face him again. For a moment, they stood staring at each other, neither willing to break the silence. Then, finally, she opened the top drawer of the dresser. "If I lose my job over this, I will find a way to make you pay." She meant every word of that.

He eyed her passively, not bothering to answer that threat. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she withdrew the briefcase, unlocked it, and hesitated for a slight moment before handing over the two-inch-thick manila folder. He probably could've spent hours going through the contents of that file. Inside was every piece of documentation - and a not-inconsiderable amount of personal testimony - on the Agency work he had done in Vietnam. Leaning against the wall, he spent several minutes skimming through it, scanning over assignments he probably didn't remember, and ones she was sure he did.

"So who sent you on this little expedition?" he asked.

She studied him warily. That was most definitely need-to-know. Of course, so was everything in that file. "The order came down from Richard Ekhart."

Smith looked up abruptly, and for an instant, she wondered if he recognized the name. But then he asked, "Who's that?" like he really wanted to know, and her suspicion was laid to rest.

"He was recently promoted to section chief," she explained. "A lot of people don't like him. I have no particular opinion one way or the other."

"He give you any idea why the sudden interest in seeing me brought to justice?" He went back to the folder.

"He's done a fair amount of house cleaning since he assumed his current position," she answered with a shrug. "You're just one of what I imagine are many."

Smith thumbed through the papers, one at a time. Finally, he looked back up at her. "Okay. So the Agency keeps very good records. And you do very good research. But the contents of that folder don't really tell me anything I don't already know."

"I never said that they would," she reminded him. " _You_ were the one who wanted to see the file."

"So if this is all you have," he instigated, "how is it that you're hoping to persuade me to come with you in handcuffs back to Langley?"

She sighed, and shook her head in frustration at him. "You have what I have. What do you want, for me to start making things up?"

"Where's _your_ orders?" he pressed.

She stared at him, dumbfounded. "In a filing cabinet somewhere," she replied with no small amount of tactless disgust. "Why the _hell_ would I be carrying that around with me? Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be?"

His eyes narrowed at her. "What I want isn't in there, Suzy."

Frustration growing, she growled at him. "Well, what I want isn't exactly on the table, either," she reminded him. "I'm willing to settle for an explanation from you. Is that really so much to ask?"

With all that she'd just put on the line, as much transparency as she'd proven herself willing to show, it was amazing to her that he still wanted more. Frankly, she had nothing else to give. And all she was asking for was his side of the story, to know _why_.

"We were given orders to hit that village," he shot at her. The force of his statement caught her off guard. "To TWEP every man, woman, and child in it."

"TWEP?" she repeated, uncertain of the meaning.

"Terminate with extreme prejudice," he clarified. His eyes were as cold as his tone. "Some idiot gave a VC plant access to intelligence information that would've wiped out damn near the entire network. When he ran, that was the village he went to."

She stared, dumbfounded, as she put the pieces together ahead of his explanation. Terminate every man, woman, and child because of one idiot's fuck up? How could he do such a thing? How could anyone order him to do such a thing?

"There was no telling how many people he'd shared his information with," Hannibal finished. "And any one of them would've meant the extermination of our assets. So they called me."

It took her a moment to find her voice again. "Why you?" she asked, a bit shaky.

"Why not?" he demanded. That cold anger sent a chill down her spine. "It was a sticky situation they didn't want anyone finding out about. I was General Westman's go-to guy for sticky situations in general."

The silence that settled in the room was thick and uncomfortable. It took a moment before she cleared her throat and meekly asked, "What about the children?"

His expression was unreadable. "What about them?"

"If they told you to kill everyone and you didn't kill the children," she said, "you violated your orders." Could that be what they wanted with him? But it was so damned long ago...

His eyes narrowed into slits and he glared at her. "I did. And if your boss has a problem with that, you can tell him to kiss my ass."

"Tell him yourself." It wasn't an order. Instead, it was an appeal. He had to see how wrong this was, and if housecleaning was being done, there were some truly filthy messes here that only he knew about.

He tossed the folder on the dresser, and the papers slid out of it as it landed, in an array across the table. "No thanks."

"If that's really what happened, _someone_ can validate your story," she continued, undeterred. "Who gave you the orders?"

"I don't remember," he lied. She could tell instantly that it was a lie. But he followed it up quickly with the truth. "And I don't care."

"Well, somebody remembers," she snapped back. "And I'll need your help to find them."

"No," he refused with a glare. "Sorry. I can't help you."

She could feel her frustration mounting as she stepped in closer to him. " _Someone_ needs to pay for what happened to those people."

"Why?" he demanded. "Because it's on your guilty conscience? It's not on mine."

Jaw dropped, she stared at him. How the hell could he even suggest that he had a clear conscience after the admission he'd just made? Orders or not, he'd stared into the eyes of civilian men and women who may or may not have even known why they were dying and executed them. "Hannibal, it was wrong!"

"It was _war_ , Suzanne!" he yelled, voice raised for the first time since she'd met him in genuine emotion.

"They were still human beings!" Even she was startled by the intensity in her answer. Fists clenched at her sides, she was ready to take him on, her own emotion bubbling up to meet his.

Eyes narrowed, he gave plenty of warning that he was about to hit below the belt before he actually did it. "You know," he mocked, "you really ought to learn the difference between human beings and enemies or you're _never_ going to get out from behind that desk."

There was no thought. With one hand, she slapped him. With the other, she grabbed his arm just above the wrist. She had it cuffed before he could react. Her practiced efficiency would've allowed her to twist his arm behind his back if she'd just had a little more strength to put into it. But in the fraction of a second it took for her to figure out she had to pull harder, he had twisted his wrist out of her grasp and suddenly, the two of them were cuffed together.

"Not nice, Suzy," he warned.

She growled, jerking her hand away from him although clearly, it wasn't going to do any good. "You're a bastard, you know that?"

"I suppose this is the part where you tell me you really _are_ stuck behind a desk," he continued, poking at that vulnerable spot with a sharp stick. "Until they sent you out on this bogus assignment – with a partner to hold your hand – so you could do petty police work and serve a warrant."

She pulled back her right arm, against the cuffs - not caring in the least how much it hurt her wrist as long as it threw him off balance. In that moment where he stumbled towards her, she threw a solid left hook. It was textbook - coming in high and at a downward angle.

He stumbled slightly at the impact, but still managed to catch her wrist. More than that, in a flash he had her pinned to the wall. "Now that's _really_ not nice."

She growled. "Keep it up and I'll show you not nice."

"That could be interesting," he answered. Just as fast as it had come, the dangerous emotion was gone from his eyes, receded back into the depths and well hidden behind his practiced insults and taunts and superiority complex.

She struggled to pull her hands free once more before she gave up on that idea. He was annoyingly stronger than she was, no matter what her training. Instead, her eyes bore into him, wishing she could kill with her stare alone. "Try it," she dared him, noticing how he wasn't stepping back.

He watched her eyes, unmoving. "Try what?"

Although he sounded so fucking innocent, she _knew_ he had a plan. He always had a plan. "Whatever the hell it is you're thinking."

He answered in a whisper. "I'm not thinking anything." A slight smile crossed his lips. "What are _you_ thinking?"

"Nothing you'd be too fond of right now," she said dryly.

A smile was back on his lips, rubbing her patience in all the wrong ways. "Try me," he invited.

Eyes locked, she struggled to read him, to get past that aggravating, mischievous glint that was always there. Try me? What the hell was that supposed to mean anyway? Jaw clenched tight, she let out a sharp frustrated exhale through her nose, but refused to give him any more.

"Can I ask you something, Suzanne?" he asked almost conversationally.

She wanted to refuse, but realized it would be pointless. "Can I really stop you right now?"

"We can stand here all day as far as I care," he answered with a shrug. "I've got nowhere to be."

The expression on his face suggested he was completely serious. As she glared back, he waited, neither tightening nor loosening his grip. Finally, she forced some of the tension out of her body, hoping that he would relax a bit in return. Just as soon as he let her off of that wall, she was going to... Well, she wasn't really sure what she was going to do yet. But it was going to hurt.

"How long are we going to do this?" she demanded when he didn't make a move. She raised a brow at him, a silent invitation to ask whatever it was that he wanted to know so badly. But he didn't take the hint. Finally, with no small amount of frustration, she cried, "Ask your damn question!"

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked suddenly.

Blinking in surprise, it took a moment before her brow furrowed. It was not the question she had been expecting. In fact, it had been the furthest thing from her mind. "Should I be?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"Fear's not always a rational emotion," he informed her condescendingly.

Instantly, her confusion was tucked up under her frustration again, and she glared at him. "I'm not afraid of you," she snapped with conviction.

"Are you sure?" He smirked slightly. "You're in a rather compromised position right now."

With a bark of laughter, she raised both brows in challenge. "Are you threatening me?"

"Just stating the obvious," he said casually.

She rolled her eyes. Although she didn't have a clue what he was getting at, she certainly wasn't afraid of him. But somewhere in a far corner of her mind, the thought occurred to her that maybe any other rational and sane person in her position would have been. "I think you are a lot of things, Colonel," she finally stated. "None of them prevented me from bringing you to my motel room."

He raised a brow, but his tone wasn't mocking as he continued. "What things am I Suzy?"

"On which side of the line?" she shot back.

He smiled. "Which line?"

Not at all appreciating the banter, her eyes narrowed at him. "You asked me a question. You want an answer? Stop playing word games."

He shook his head slightly. "Just trying to figure out what you meant."

"You're a bright boy, Colonel," she condescended. "Don't play me for a fool."

"A fool?" He smiled again, reeking of confidence. "I'd never think that. Though wisdom might have something to say about you bringing a man into your hotel room who _does_ play both sides of the line."

She let a small smile pull at the corner of her mouth. "Looks like you just answered your own question."

He leaned in closer to her, tipping his head slightly until his nose almost touched the side of hers. "That you're not afraid of me? Or that you're a fool..."

She lowered her voice, playing on his tone. "Take your pick, Colonel."

He leaned in a bit further, letting his nose touch hers, lips barely brushing as he nuzzled her gently. "Take yours."

She closed her eyes as a sudden, unexpected feeling gripped her womb. She could feel the warmth of his breath, and the sudden, unexpected intensity of the situation took her completely by surprise. "I made my stand years ago," she breathed, well aware of the shudder that was clearly audible in her voice.

He pulled back slightly, enough to meet her eyes again. "So did I."

Eyes locked, hardly breathing. "And there we have it," she barely whispered.

She watched him, searching him, but found no genuine threat. Even in this precarious situation, even as he leaned in closer to her, there was no hint of fear. She couldn't help but respond as his lips brushed hers in a light, barely-there kiss. Her breath was caught in her chest, her brain reeling against itself as he held her there, letting the kiss move at its own pace, slow and lingering. He eased off the pressure on the wrist he was holding to the wall, and moved his hand gently, an inch at a time, from her wrist all the way down to her elbow. She didn't resist him, letting him take control of things as more and more of her brain was taken over by sensations she hadn't expected to find here. His lips on hers, demanding more attention with each passing second until hers finally parted, letting him lead without resistance.

His feet didn't move, but his hips pulled back slightly as he took the pressure off of her lower body, still kissing her - deeper with each second that passed and every hint of a response from her. He moved his hand all the way to her shoulder, then along the side of her neck. His fingers slid back into her hair and tightened just enough for her to feel it, tipping her head the way he wanted it as he licked her lips and then slowly penetrated her mouth.

A soft moan escaped her. Sensations she couldn't control flooded through her. He let the kiss deepen, tasting and feeling and controlling her. Then, slowly, he withdrew. She opened her eyes to see him watching her as he slowly ran his fingers down the side of her neck.

"Where's the key to the handcuffs, Suzy?"

She blinked, startled by the question and utterly confused by the haze in her mind. "What? Key?"

"Yes," he answered, lifting the hand that was attached to hers. "The key."

The reality of the situation suddenly hit her. How the _hell_ had she let that happen? Without answering him, she quickly moved her right leg to the outside and behind his left leg. In a moment, he was on the ground, pulling her with him. He rolled in an effort to pin her - but without proper use of his cuffed hand and still sporting a bullet wound in the same arm, he couldn't get the leverage to stop himself. They wrestled, over and under, until they hit the bed frame. There, he used his free hand to hold himself up, his cuffed one to hold her wrist down as he smiled.

"You know, Suzy," he teased, "the bed is a lot more comfortable if you just wanted to roll around."

She growled as she put the bottom of her foot on top of his knee. Pushing him off balance and rolling again, she tried to keep her free hand out of his grip. There was surprising little she could do while she was cuffed to him.

"Not that I mind the floor…"

They tumbled one over the other all the way to the table near the door, this time. He was playing with her, and she hated it. He was stronger and they both knew it. The "rough and tumble" was his idea of fun.

The chair fell back against the heating unit with a loud crack, and he almost winced when his back hit the table leg, full force. He was out of room to keep going, and lying somewhere between his back and his side. She was on her knees instantly, throwing that left cross again, driving her fist so hard that she was actually aiming for the floor.

He took it. Then he pushed off the table and drove her onto her back again. She gave a yelp of surprise as his lips were suddenly crushing hers again. But her hand was free. And he wasn't watching it. She reached into her pocket, grabbed the syringe, flicked the cap off, and jabbed the needle into him as hard as she could. Best case scenario, she got his ass, or maybe his thigh. But as long as she got him, she didn't really care where.

She knew he felt it. But he didn't immediately acknowledge it. Instead, he simply finished the kiss and pulled back slowly, looking down at her. "Interesting weapon, Suzy. I guess it's easier to miss on a pat down."

She pulled the syringe out of his flesh and threw it to the other side of the room. "I told you not to play me for a fool."

He laughed. If his confidence was shaken by the fact that he knew he'd just been drugged, it didn't show. His eyes were dancing as he leaned down and pressed his lips against her ear. "If you were a fool, I wouldn't be here. I would've shoved you out the door with a few party favors and that would've been the end of it. Just like every other cop and client and beautiful woman."

"I'm flattered," she lied.

"You should be," he said sincerely. "I'm here because you're _not_ a fool."

"Good," she dismissed. She was already trying to squirm out from under him. "Now, would you like to collapse on the floor, or get up and sit on that bed you seem to be so fond of?"

He pulled away enough to smile down at her. "Only if you'll join me," he teased.

She smirked at him. "You think _way_ too highly of yourself, Smith. But just this once," she pulled on the cuff to make her statement, "I'll make an exception."

He smiled and pushed himself up. "You should be aware that my team might not find quite as much amusement in this as I do. They're going to come after you. And they will find you."

"That's not my problem." She allowed herself a smile, she had won this round. Finally. And she had every intention of reveling in her success.

He sat down on the bed, moving until his back was against the headboard. Like it or not, he pulled her down into his lap and held her there, saying nothing more. She didn't bother fighting him. He was done until he woke up, and he knew it. He was just trying to get as much of a last word in as he could possibly hope for.

"Does this take the sting out of things a bit?" she mocked, regarding her current position with distaste.

He smiled. "I like women who play hard to get."

"Mmm. Except I'm not playing." She pointed out.

"Sure you are." He leaned into her again, to whisper in her ear. His breathing was deepening. "You just don't know it yet."

She ran a finger down to his chest as he leaned into her, she couldn't help but smile. Even now, when he knew he was on the losing end of things he had every smug answer in the book. It didn't matter though. "So what sort of embarrassing position should I stage you in for when my backup arrives?" she mocked.

He chuckled as he leaned back, and closed his eyes with a smile. "Any one you want. I'm sure it will be interesting to explain, given that this is your motel room."

She beamed as she patted the palm of her hand against his chest, watching the drug take effect. "Nobody knows this is my motel room," she informed him. "As far as everyone will be concerned, you came here with a whore and had a very unfortunate accident."

He smiled. "Hmm… I like your style, Suzy."

Without another word, he turned his head to the side, and let it drop. And she smiled.

 **March 2, 1968**

Hannibal was slowly beginning to adjust to his team's near-celebrity status. But Finch was born for it. Full of charisma - and quite often full of shit, Hannibal suspected - the kid had an uncanny way of endearing himself to just about anyone he talked to. It was a talent Hannibal knew how to use, having developed it for himself years ago. Although he had fewer months experience than anyone on the team, he was quickly becoming the one Hannibal wanted on his right hand when he approached an unfamiliar camp commander - especially one he expected might be a bit hostile.

"I'm sorry you got sent out here," Captain Ureski said dryly as he paced slowly beside Hannibal on the grand tour of the camp, "but we really don't need your help."

"That's good," Hannibal replied with a smile, "because we didn't come all this way to be at your disposal, Captain."

Taken slightly aback by what he (rightly) interpreted as a mild confrontation, Ureski stammered for a moment before Finch took over. "Strictly speaking," he offered cordially, "we're here to gain intelligence. You recorded a large concentration of VC in the hills just north of here."

Confused, Ureski nodded/shook his head in a sort of neither/nor fashion. "Well, yes, but -"

"We're here to investigate that presence," Young interrupted.

"We distinctly don't want to interfere in the daily operations in your camp," Hannibal added, affording the insecure officer some much-needed flattery. "We're happy to leave that in your more-than-capable hands."

"Oh," Ureski said. Then, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, he continued. "It's just that I was under the impression your team was reserved for specialist missions. There's nothing out of the ordinary about the VC cell we found - if there is, indeed, a cell of them. There's gooks all over out there."

"We go where the job takes us," Hannibal replied politely.

As the young captain excused himself to return to his terribly busy agenda, Hannibal lit the remains of a cigar he'd started on the trip over.

"You know, he's got a point," Finch said with amusement. "It does sound like a pretty straightforward intelligence mission. Why do they need us?"

Hannibal gave a slight grin. "You got plans, kid?" he teased. "Something better to do?"

With a roll of his eyes and a half-laugh, Finch muttered under his breath something about the hot nurses at their most recently-visited C camp, then headed back to the front gate to wait for the rest of the team's arrival. He had nothing better to do, and nothing he would rather be doing. After years and years of waiting, Hannibal's team was not only formed, but formed with the best of the best. In the coming months, he had faith that he would get to see just what they were capable of out here in the field. And finally, Hannibal had confidence that things would only get better and better.


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

 **November 8, 1982**

Hannibal moaned softly as he fought his way back to consciousness. Where was he? Was he asleep? What was he doing sleeping? And why did he have such a splitting headache?

Something was wrong. He could smell it in the air. This was not his room, his apartment, or his bed. He fought through the layers of memories, through a growing awareness that something was very wrong. But he couldn't think. There was only fog.

He was cramped, as if he hadn't moved in hours. He tried to turn onto his side, to pull his arms in. They didn't move, and a dull pain on his wrists made his eyes snap open. What the hell? Motel room. Not his own. He was tied, spread eagle, on the bed.

Aw, hell.

Naked and cold from the blasting air conditioner, his thoughts were simple. Along with a growing awareness of just how badthis was, anger and indignation welled up in equal amounts. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. She - and possibly her partner - were supposed to take him away. And the team was supposed to find out about it just as soon as he crossed that 10 mile radius. He knew she _wanted_ to get him to her superiors. So where the hell was she?

"Suzanne!" he called angrily, just in case she was still there. He didn't expect an answer, and he didn't get one. With an angry growl, he pulled himself up as much as he could. Cuffs on his wrists and ropes on his ankles. "Damn it!"

He was going to get even with her for this. But first he had to get out of here. If she'd stripped him, she'd found that transmitter. Whether she'd destroyed it or set it aside was of little consequence. One way or another, it wouldn't be going with him when she did return.

He fell back again, closed his eyes, and breathed deep a few times. No sense getting angry right now. He had bigger and more important things to think about than what he was going to do when he got his hands on her. First he had to figure out how in the hell he was supposed to get his hands out of these cuffs.

She'd gone for backup. If she'd been smart, she would've had them on standby. No way she could've possibly expected to carry him out of here on her own. But two hours was a hell of a long time. Had she gone three counties over to get her help? Of course, it wasn't like he was going anywhere. She didn't need to hurry on his account.

How long would it take her to get back? He considered it as he pulled on the cuffs, testing to see how much room he had to maneuver. The bed was only a double. They had some give. Hell of a lot of good it was going to do him. He hadn't the slightest idea where the key was. She'd probably taken it with her. No way he had anything within his grasp to pick the lock with, and even if he did, he wouldn't be able to twist his hand around enough to do it. No way he'd break the cuffs off the metal post of the headboard. He was trapped.

He glanced at the clock again, anxiously. Unwelcome guests of the law enforcement variety would be coming through that door any moment now. He didn't even want to think about that. He certainly wasn't in any position to defend himself.

There was a phone next to the clock, but the cuffs didn't have nearly enough give for him to reach it. He pulled, just to see how close he could get. His fingertips barely brushed the twisted cord from the handset. He flicked it, setting it swinging, and kept it going a little further every time until finally, he could get his fingers tangled in it.

The cuffs were bruising his wrists where he was pulling on them. He gave them some slack as he carefully pulled the phone by the cord. The receiver came off the hook, and he pulled it onto the bed. The phone itself was heavier, and he winced as it clattered off the ledge and fell between the bedside table and the mattress. He was done for if that cord came disconnected.

It didn't.

He pulled the phone closer and wrenched his arm around to touch the buttons. Dialing was tricky, and the fact that he knew he had to hurry didn't help. But finally the phone was ringing. He sighed with relief at the distant voice that finally answered.

There was no way to bring the receiver closer. He'd have to yell to be heard, and he wouldn't understand any reply. But it was enough. With a calm bred through years of practice and a commanding tone he'd perfected decades ago, he raised his voice towards the phone. "Face, I am at the Motel Six in Van Nuys, room 204, and I need you here, now."

 **November 8, 1982**

Face had burned rubber to get from Woodview to Van Nuys. Still, every mile seemed to take forever. Hannibal had given no details, but considering the current situation, a call like that couldn't be good. While he was glad to see the colonel finally admit the potential seriousness of the situation, he knew Hannibal. Dangerous or not, he wouldn't be able to resist any opportunity to goad the woman who'd shown no hesitation at blowing holes in him. And he'd made it clear that he had every intention of pursuing whatever information she might have.

If not for the fact that it would have cost precious time, Face probably would've picked up BA for reinforcement on the way to Van Nuys. But if Hannibal was injured or, worse, about to go missing, he couldn't waste spare a single moment. Suzanne Davids was a little girl playing a grown-up game. But her employer didn't mess around.

The parking lot of the Motel 6 was nearly empty. Face circled around the back to park and did a quick survey of the layout before heading up to the room. The blackout curtains made it impossible to see inside and the door was locked. He'd expected as much, though he had hoped to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible. Hesitant and uneasy about the entire situation, watching over his shoulder and scanning his entire surroundings for any sign of movement, he knocked on the door and called out, "Hannibal?"

"In here, Face," the voice came back through the door. "It's clear."

Face frowned. Although he sounded irritated, Hannibal distinctly didn't sound injured, or in duress. Grabbing the lock picks out of his jacket pocket, Face went to work on the door and, despite the "all clear," took the time to put them away and grab his gun before opening the door. Expecting the worst, he took a step into the darkened room and suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was truly hilarious, or if it was in fact serious. The annoyed look on Hannibal's face finally made up his mind and he shut the door as the laughter began spilling over.

"Glad you find this amusing, Lieutenant," Hannibal said dryly. "But you'd better get it out of your system quickly because it probably won't be long before the reinforcements arrive."

"Oh!" Now that he'd started, Face couldn't stop chuckling. "The reinforcements! I thought this was a solo act."

He tucked the gun into the back of his pants as he made his way towards the bed, then stood there for a moment, just smiling. Hannibal glared at him. "She drugged me," he explained. "I figured we'd be on our way to the airport but I didn't expect her to..."

He tried a few times to find a way to explain his current predicament, but failed. Face raised his brow, his arms crossed in a very patronizing fashion. "So, she was alone?"

Hannibal continued to glare, not rising to the bait. "Mind getting me out of these cuffs, Lieutenant?"

With dramatic flair, Face patted himself down. "You know, I may have left my lock picks in the car."

The smile Hannibal gave was anything but amused. "I hope not. Because I don't know where she went but I assume she's coming back."

Face pulled his lock picks out of his jacket and made a show of choosing which one to use. "Gee, Hannibal," he goaded, "if one girl managed to do this to you, I might just have to get the Barbie dolls and My Little Pony toys to ward off -"

" _Enough_ , Lieutenant!"

Hannibal was genuinely irritated. That much was very clear by the tone of his voice. Face smirked, but didn't say anything more as he worked at the cuff. It only took him a minute or so to get it unlatched. "Well," he concluded lightly, "at least she arranged for a comfy mattress instead of those cardboard cutout ones at the stockade."

Hannibal rotated his wrist, flexing his fingers a few times to get the blood circulating again.

"You know –" Face moved to the other side of the bed "- I gotta say, I don't think there has been a single time _I've_ wound up naked and handcuffed to a bed with any of Lynch's plants. And yet you're the one always warning me to be careful, lest I get caught. Kind of ironic, don't you think?"

"I'll be interested to see who she comes back with," Hannibal said, changing the topic abruptly. "Though I don't want to do it from inside this room. The roof, maybe."

Face got the other cuff unlatched and looked at him. The amusement at the entire situation still glowed. "So this was a worthwhile endeavor?" he taunted.

Hannibal brought his arm in and rubbed his wrist. "Very funny, Lieutenant."

"What?" Face asked innocently, on the verge of laughter again. He shrugged, still smiling. "This is one call out I haven't minded in the least. Hell, I have a free pass until you have to uncuff me from a bed because of some 'harmless dame'."

Hannibal shot him a decidedly irked glare, then leaned forward to start untying the rope around his ankle. "You've made your point," he said bitterly.

Face chuckled at that. He'd be making his point for a long time.

"Where the hell did she put my clothes?" Hannibal demanded.

Face looked around. "No idea." He picked up a corner of the sheet. "But I hear toga is in this year."

Irritated with the knot - this girl must have learned to tie knots from a sailor – Hannibal finally turned to Face. "Give me your knife."

The fact that he couldn't get his feet free from the bed probably just added to his mounting frustration. Deciding not to rub any more salt in the wound, Face handed the knife over just as some drawers and shelves caught his eye. He left Hannibal to figure out his clothing and went over for a closer look.

"She's definitely beginning to lose her appeal," Hannibal grumbled as he slit the rope.

"Appeal?" Face was somewhat distracted by the folder in the dresser drawer. "If you're really that hard up, I can give you some numbers."

Eyes scanning, Face moved practiced fingers lightly down the page, skimming quickly. These were mission reports. More specifically, this folder had a whole stack of _Hannibal's_ mission reports. Well, hell…

The sound of a car door made Face snap to attention, frozen on instinct. "Uh oh," Hannibal muttered as the car door was followed by several more.

Face shut the folder, leaving it behind in anticipation of his need for both hands. Drawing in a preparatory breath, he reached for his gun. "'Uh oh' happened weeks ago," he mumbled under his breath as he stepped up alongside Hannibal.

Without moving the curtain, the colonel craned his neck to see outside. "'Uh oh' just got worse," he said. "She's got five cars worth of escorts from the LAPD."

Hannibal found his clothes in the bathroom, but not his gun. While he searched for it, Face watched the Suzanne and her entourage gather and organize. "Who's the guy?" Face asked, eyes flickering between Hannibal and the plainclothes assistant at her right hand who spoke so familiarly, not quite maintaining appropriate personal space.

As Hannibal came close again, still tucking in his shirt, Face grabbed his backup gun and offered it. Careful not to touch the curtain, Hannibal took the pistol gratefully and peeked through the slit into the daylight outside. "His name is Luke," he explained once he got a good look at the man in question. "He was at her apartment, but I'm not entirely sure what their relationship entails."

"Luke, huh?" Face asked. "How long have you been on a first name basis with him?"

Hannibal stepped away from the window, ignoring the question. "Get behind the door and be ready to push it closed," he ordered. "First person through that door is going to be our hostage."

"Hostage?" Face repeated, alarmed.

"Yeah." Hannibal smiled wickedly. Clearly he had both an expectation and a hope for who would be first through the door.

Positioning himself by the door, Face closed his eyes and listened for the footsteps, slipping effortlessly into "combat mode". It was different now than it had been all those years ago, when he'd first learned how to do it. Then, he'd been prepared to take a life, to feel blood on his hands, to do whatever it took to kill and survive. Now, he needed only to focus on escape. But some things hadn't changed; success meant working in tandem with his team, thinking the same thoughts and moving in the same instant, perfectly matched. It was an instinct he'd finely tuned in the jungle, and it served him well as he heard high heels clicking on the pavement, sparking his adrenaline. If she wasn't first, she was still right up front. Funny how it actually worked to their benefit that she was expecting Hannibal to be tied to the bed when she opened the door. It would give them a moment of surprise...

Gun drawn, blood singing in his ears, Face watched for Hannibal's signal as they heard the key in the lock. "There's a chance he'll still be unconscious," her muffled voice came through the door. Face tensed, ready.

The door opened. The second her foot crossed the thresh hold, before her eyes could adjust to the dim light inside, Hannibal had a hand around her arm. He jerked her off balance, against his chest, and she barely had time to gasp before his gun was in her cheek and the door was closed, blocking the startled men behind her. In the confusion, they pounded the door, but Face had already locked it.

"Hi, Suzy," Hannibal greeted brightly.

Suzanne growled angrily as she realized her predicament, but didn't bother struggling. "God, I hate you."

Hannibal chuckled as he turned towards the door and raised his voice to be heard by the police outside. "Gentlemen," he called loudly, "this has just become a hostage situation."

Suzanne laughed loudly. "Hostage? Are you kidding?"

Hannibal wasn't kidding. "I suggest you back away from the door and put your weapons on the pavement before I shoot this nice lady."

She rolled her eyes. "You really do think I'm a fool, don't you?"

"Well," Face answered casually, "you did leave him alone and unguarded. Only a fool would expect him to still be there when you got back."

Hannibal's hand dropped to her waist and pulled her sidearm and the gun tucked into the back of her skirt - his gun - before he shoved her forward, hard enough to make her fall right into Face. She straightened herself quickly, and Face smiled.

Hannibal moved the curtain aside to watch the men outside, hesitant and debating. " _Now_ , gentlemen!"

As they slowly complied, Hannibal checked her gun to make sure the clip was full, then glanced at Face. A quick nod in her direction was all the order he had to give, and Face grabbed her arm. "No heroics now, sweetheart," Face patronized.

She laughed. "Heroics? I still can't believe you're actually trying to _kidnap_ me."

"Think of it as advanced negotiations," Hannibal replied, smiling at her before he reached for the door and slowly pulled it open.

"Turn around and hold onto the railing with both hands," Hannibal ordered. He waited for compliance before continuing. "My friend and I are going to come out with Miss Davids. We're going to walk down to my car and you're going to let us go. And you'll get her back in one piece as long as nobody reaches for those weapons."

He was racing the clock, and they all knew it. There were more cops in this city than what were standing outside this door. And they had probably all been alerted of this situation by now. It was going to be very interesting getting out of here.

"You know," Suzanne said dryly, "you'd probably be better off giving yourself up before you get accidentally shot. _Again_."

"Aw, you won't let that happen, Suzy," Hannibal replied confidently, and with a smile.

He stepped out of the room first, a pistol in each hand as he guarded Face and Suzanne. Even a good shot couldn't alleviate this situation. They might shoot Hannibal, but that left Face wide open to shoot her. Hannibal walked backwards, watching the cops in the cars out of the corner of his eye. Rather, the cops who were crouched beside their cars.

Suzanne wasn't struggling. In fact, she was muttering under her breath as Face led her. "I can't believe you're kidnapping me _now_. Like you didn't have ample opportunity before. What the hell is wrong with you?"

No way in hell they'd make it to Hannibal's car. Even if they did, no way in hell his car would outrun those cops. As they moved slowly towards the corner of the building, they stayed ready. "I assume you're parked on the other side?" Hannibal said low.

Face managed a quick glare at him. "I swear, Hannibal, if you get this car shot up..."

Suzanne chuckled. "Oh, it will be," she said. "Shot all to hell. The tail lights, the bumper, the fuzzy dice on the mirror, hula girl on the dashboard..."

Hannibal gave a muted smile as he reached the corner of the building. Then in one smooth movement he ducked behind the corner, tucked her gun into the front of his pants, grabbed her upper arm, and was running - dragging her behind. "Move!"

She stumbled a bit in the heels before finally kicking them off. Down the aisle and down the steps, Face was a few steps ahead of them, diving into the driver's seat of a Datsun 280z. Hannibal pulled up short at the sight of the two-seater. " _That's_ your car?"

"And it's leaving in ten seconds or less," Face shot back.

Hannibal had the door open with the hand that was holding his gun. He sat down in the passenger seat and with nothing that could even be remotely construed as finesse, pulled Suzanne into his lap. The door was shut almost before her legs were inside, and Hannibal did his best to keep her off of Face. "Go!"

Thoroughly unamused with the entire charade, Suzanne glared out the front windshield as the tires squealed, and Face was careening out of the parking lot with smoke and the scent of burning rubber. "I hope you're happy," she grumbled, squirming uncomfortably at her position on Hannibal's lap. "This is going to be one hell of an embarrassing write up."

Hannibal chuckled. "I'm sure it will."

"Well, that's your goal, isn't it?" she snapped at him. "To embarrass me?"

Face blew through the narrow hole between the cop cars that were trying to block him in, and winced at the ping of bullets on metal. "You are going to pay for every one of these holes," he warned.

"Don't look at me," Suzanne snapped back at him. "This wasn't my idea. And those were Christian Lacroix heels by the way. You can't even get them in the States yet. They damn well better have them in evidence when I get back."

As Face peeled off over the grassy median, between the trees, and into oncoming traffic before swerving down a side road, Hannibal only smiled.

 **March 3, 1968**

Hannibal's shirt was drenched with sweat. He couldn't have been wetter if he'd stood in the shower with his clothes on. The thought of a shower provided a spark of determination and energy he desperately needed to put one foot in front of the other through the thick vegetation. His weapon felt heavy, and so did his eyelids. Two days with no sleep, and only minimal success had left the entire team tired and he knew they weren't at their peak. They'd found evidence of the reported VC presence, but no intelligence to speak of. The quick, lean-to shelters were abandoned, and had probably been that way for days. Still, he held out hope that they would make it back without incident, rest for a night or two, then try again.

He should've known better. Perhaps he should've felt or sensed or knew with that highly developed sixth sense, that things were about to go very wrong. But the flicker of awareness, the sinking feeling that warned of impending doom, came and went so quickly, his tired mind didn't even register it until they heard the first shots. Like a popcorn machine exploding little kernels - an analogy that warned of just how distant his mind really was from the life or death situation - the trees themselves seemed to open fire on them, and the team instantly dove for cover.

It wasn't fast enough for one of the Nungs who was caught with first one, then two or three or even more bullets. He jerked back and forth on his feet as they ripped through his body, then collapsed forward, onto his face. Cursing under his breath for the lack of alertness that had allowed for such an ambush, Hannibal felt the blessed, welcome adrenaline kick in as the team returned fire, and a few cries in the vegetation around them suggested their bullets had hit their mark.

Crawling across the dense brush, Hannibal made it to Wo within seconds. Alive, but unconscious, his chances of survival were slim considering the number of holes in him - two in the back and one in the thigh, but a much more concerning one through his left eye. A few seconds later, Indigo appeared beside Hannibal.

"There's a dozen of them, at least," he reported. "They fucking have us surrounded."

"Call it," Hannibal ordered as he quickly and gracelessly wrapped the wound around Wo's head to stop the flow of blood.

The extraction helicopter would reach them in a matter of minutes, he knew. And they could hold the enemy off that long. Finished with what hasty field dressing he could afford, Hannibal turned his attention to the enemy, firing into the trees more blindly than he wanted to admit. The sweat dripping in his eyes blurred his vision, and even the adrenaline wasn't quite enough to combat the exhaustion that made it hard to focus on the expertly camouflaged soldiers in the trees.

Although there were no more sounds of American weapons fire, the popping of AK-47s never stopped or even paused as the thumping helicopters arrived. Hannibal secured Wo to the harness, then hooked on to his own rope. Then, casting a long, wary look up at the limbs of the trees overhead, he drew in a breath and radioed the all clear. If the bullets didn't kill them, it would just be damned ironic to die from being pinballed off the trees during the extraction.

The trees and vines clawed and scratched and grabbed at him until finally, they cleared the canopy. Safe now from the enemy fire, the next problem became apparent almost immediately. The two nylon ropes were twisted and knotted, rubbing together as the two men dangled helplessly over the jungle. With wide eyes, Hannibal watched helplessly as he wondered just how long it would be before they started to smoke and then burned through.

The soldier that popped his head out the side of the chopper to check on them saw it too. He disappeared again, but within a matter of seconds, he was rappelling out the side of the moving chopper with only a rope tied around his waist. In the midst of the enemy fire and RPGs still threatening them from below, the dark-haired man separated the two ropes, untwisting them before they burned through. Then, helpless to pull himself back up into the chopper, he dangled beside them all the way back to the base.

There was a full medical team waiting in the clearing when Hannibal's feet touched the ground. They ran to him, but he waved them off, shaking his head and directing their attention to the still-unconscious - or dead? - Nung in the other harness. As they rushed to help the badly injured man, Hannibal caught his breath and, as the rest of the team arrived, caught sight of the worried looks from his teammates. With a weak wave, he reassured them that he was, miraculously, uninjured. He would need to sleep for a week, but he'd be just fine.

Casting a long look at the man who'd untangled the ropes, himself trying to wrestle his way out of the hastily-tied, makeshift harness. He only offered a wave and a smile before turning away, expecting no thanks or acknowledgment for risking his life, and it took every ounce of strength Hannibal could muster to call out after him, "What's your name?"

The young man paused, looked back, and gave a half-assed salute. "Sergeant Ray Brenner," he answered.

"Brenner," Hannibal repeated. "I won't forget that."

The man smiled again, and then he was gone, leaving Hannibal to stumble weakly toward the infirmary with the help of his team.


	21. Chapter Twenty

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

 **November 8, 1982**

An hour drive in a cramped car - while sitting on Smith's lap, no less - did little to improve Suzanne's mood. She'd _had_ him, dead to right, and yet somehow he had still managed to weasel his way free. How in the hell had he done it?

If the Chief hadn't balked at her request for backup she would be halfway to Langley by now. She'd have Hannibal signed, sealed, and delivered. Then she could get to the heart of the matter and find out just which idiot at the CIA thought they could slaughter an entire village and just walk away from it. Damn it all. But no, instead, she had been kidnapped and taken for a joyride to the middle of the god-forsaken desert. This was beyond absurd.

"Where are we?" Suzanne demanded as the car finally stopped in the middle of nowhere.

"We're in the desert," Hannibal answered. "Where does it look like we are?"

She glared at him. "I know _that_. What are we doing here?"

She eyed the structure in front of them – a travel trailer with corrugated tin walls added on to expand it into something like a house. Actually, it looked more like a kid's fort, or one of the hootches she'd seen in photos of Vietnam.

"We're stopping." Hannibal seemed to take great pleasure in pointing out the obvious. As Face killed the engine, Hannibal pushed open the door. "Get out."

Suzanne looked at the metal - what the hell was that, anyway? House? Hut? Trailer? Box? - then back at Hannibal. Was he serious? One look at him and she knew he was. Great, the _one_ time he was serious, she'd been hoping for facetious.

With a shake of her head and as much dignity as she could manage, she twisted in his lap and stumbled onto the shifting sand. Her legs were cramped and a little less steady then she would have liked. Using the door, she tried to balance herself, ignoring the scorching sand on her shoeless feet. She'd be damned if she was going to let him know just how uncomfortable it was. But after only a few seconds, she had no choice but to instinctively hop from one foot to the other. Still, she kept her back straight and shoulders squared as she took a few steps forward, trying to smooth down her hopelessly wrinkled skirt. Damn it, the thing was made of _linen_ ; it would never be the same. Tossing her head back, she folded her arms and stared at Smith. If she could've killed him with her glare, she would've.

"Nice little place you have here," she snapped at him. "Very... quaint."

Hannibal stood and shut the door behind him, then smiled at her and gestured for her to go ahead of him. Peck actually led the way, pistol in hand just in case there were surprises.

Damn, that sand was hot! It was nearly hot enough on her feet to break her not-inconsiderable pride and send her scrambling for the shade. When they reached the shadow from the trailer, it provided only minor relief. But the dry, scorching heat was radiating off of the trailer. Hell, it was probably an oven in there. Besides that, the last place she wanted to be was in a confined space with the two of them.

Hannibal stopped at the bottom of the three steps leading up to the door and gestured for her to go first. "After you, Suzy."

A brief glance at her surrounds reinforced that she had no other real options. She had no weapon; Smith had taken her knife from her in the car. Even if she managed to surprise him and get past him, she would never make it to the car before Peck caught up with her. Besides, Peck was the one with the keys. And she knew they really didn't want to harm her. Running through the desert without shoes or water or anyplace to _go_ was certainly more dangerous - not to mention stupid - than playing along.

Shaking her head slightly she walked up the steps, trying to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior and glad to have her feet on something that wasn't a thousand degrees.

"So what's your brilliant plan now that you've kidnapped me?" she demanded.

The sweltering heat inside of the tin can trailer _almost_ made her wish for the hot sand again. Peck was coming back from the second, adjoined room, slipping his gun back into his belt when she turned to Smith and raised a brow in challenge.

"Well, this isn't exactly the way I would've chosen," Smith answered. "But having you as a hostage will just make your superiors that much more cooperative when they come for that talk."

Peck stopped and stared at him, almost as incredulously as Suzanne herself. "Hannibal, you don't really think..."

He trailed off as Smith turned to him and grinned. Instead of finishing, Peck merely shook his head and sighed. Suzanne, on the other hand, was still staring at him, jaw dropped. "You're joking right?"

"Why would you think that?" he asked innocently.

Her hands dropped to her sides. "You can't _really_ still believe that my superiors agreed to coming here?"

It had to be a joke. Had to be. What were the odds that the one time he believed her was when she was lying through her teeth?

He flashed her a full smile. "Oh, come on, Suzy. You wouldn't lie to me, would you?" He stepped closer, couching in on her personal space, and lowered his voice. "Not any more than you would allow personal vendettas - or desires - to get in the way of your mission."

Her jaw snapped shut. Son of a bitch…

"Looks like your plan backfired on you, honey," Peck said flatly. "Maybe in more than one way."

She glared viciously, first at Smith and then at Peck. "Honey?Really?"

He shrugged, entirely nonchalant.

"You know, I expect that from him." She nodded towards Smith. "He's _old_ enough to use that term, but you?"

Some part of her was shocked and appalled by her outburst. She was being both stupid and careless – two things she never was. But she couldn't stop running her mouth without thinking. Maybe if she hadn't just been humiliated – both in public and in private - by Smith, she would have had a little more ability to keep her cool. But damn it, he just had a knack for getting under her skin.

Peck sighed, and turned towards the door, not willing to engage her. "I'll wait outside."

Smith nodded, and watched him go before turning back to her. "Fact is, Suzy, your plan _did_ backfire. Out in the real world, that could get you killed."

For a long moment, she just stared at him, wishing like hell she could figure out what was going on in his head. Why was he talking like he gave a damn? He'd just kidnapped her for Christ's sake! She was just a toy for him, something to pass the time with.

She didn't need to answer. It didn't matter what he thought of her. But still the words were coming out of her mouth, low and serious. "I'm well aware of how the real world operates."

"Good," he said with a smile. "Then you'll appreciate this simulation."

He walked to what had once served as a kitchen for someone who had once lived here. It was hard to believe that anyone could've lived out here in the middle of nowhere. What had ever happened to them? And why did they leave their "house" behind? It wasn't like it would've been that hard to move it...

Her wandering thoughts pulled up short as he withdrew a few gallons of water out from under the sink. He had prepared. Had he known he was going to bring her here?

"This is for you," he said. "And until further notice, you're going to stay right here. Is that understood?"

It took her a second to digest what he had just said with that patronizing, casual tone, as if she were a misbehaved child getting sent to her room for time out. And like a child, she could argue and protest, but would it really make a difference? She was in the middle of the desert with no weapon, no idea of her location, no means of communication. Hell, she didn't even have a pair of shoes. All of her protest would amount to nothing, other than to amuse him, and she was sick of being his entertainment. So instead, she found herself staring at him in genuine confusion.

"Why?" she finally asked, with less authority than she'd hoped for.

"Well, because even if your superiors _aren't_ on their way," he answered, "I imagine your disappearance - on top of what they already want from me - might make them a little more inclined to be... approachable."

She stared. He had worked with the Agency. He had to know that as far as they were concerned, she was on her own. There was no rescue, no negotiation. Of course, that wasn't necessarily what he was implying. She felt her eyes widen slightly. Was he going to let them think she was dead? That he had killed her? Was he hoping that might make them nervous and willing to talk? That was insanely risky. There was just as much reason for him to think they would send someone much more dangerous than her after him with a kill order.

He smiled as he headed for the door. "I'll be back to check on you and bring you food. For now, just make yourself at home."

"You're taking a hell of a risk, you know." Did he not even see it? "It would be easier if you just helped me get a hold of the people who started this."

"Sorry, Suzy." He paused in the doorway, and smiled at her before stepping out. "That's not part of the plan."

In a matter of only seconds, he was in the car, and pulling away, leaving her alone in the desert.

 **March 15, 1968**

As it turned out, there was a damn good reason for Hannibal's exhaustion on the mission that had ended Wo's life. While the team spent a week on stand down, he spent the better part of that week in bed, feverish and vomiting, barely able to move and trying hopelessly to keep something - even water - in his stomach. By the time the worst of it had passed, he was itching for their next assignment, eager to see something other than the inside of the sick bay. Still, it took several more days before he was returned to health and he found himself on the other side of the wire again.

It was a warm up run. At least, it should have been. He'd been in contact with Westman, who told him to take a few more days off, and was still near the radio when the popcorn sound of AK-47s blasted from the speaker. The voice that followed was frantic, calling for an extract, and Hannibal had scrambled the team in time to meet the helicopter pilot at the flight line.

The FAC knew right where to find the team, and with warnings of "It's too hot! You can't go in there!" ringing in their ears, Hannibal's team had rappelled down straight into the middle of the firefight. Well aware that there was no guarantee the helicopter pilot would stick around, there was a mad dash to reach the jungle floor, then to figure out what was going on.

"They just came at us from everywhere!" the wild eyed radio operator yelled over the sound of the bullets.

Too calm, realistically, for the situation, Hannibal put a hand on the man's shoulder as the rest of his team took stock and began blanketing the trees around them with a fresh supply of ammo. "How many still alive in your team?" he asked.

"Um, I…" The man finally closed his eyes, took a calming breath, and answered with precision. "There's me and… Groove is still alive, I think, but he's injured."

"Where?"

He pointed to the man tucked under the brush and bleeding profusely from a number of holes in his torso, one of which blew his shoulder to hell. Hannibal frowned. Whatever he'd been hit with, it was bigger than the normal rounds that came out of the automatic rifles. Moving over to the man, he checked for a pulse and found nothing. Before he had a chance to turn away, Finch was beside him.

"They're coming from the north and the east," he reported. "There's that creek down to the south and they might be trying to back us up there."

Hannibal's mind raced. "There's that field on the other side of the creek," he said quickly. "Would make a good LZ."

"If we can get across…" Finch answered warily. "It looked pretty flooded from the air."

"We're going to have to," Hannibal said, leaving no room for any other conclusion. "Call it in so the choppers can meet us there and have Covey check if that path looks clear from his angle."

Finch made no argument, only nodded and grabbed his radio. Moving away from the dead body they would have to leave behind, he readied his weapon and exchanged glances with Finch before opening fire into the trees. The plan would work; it had to. Otherwise, he'd all but ordered his entire team to their deaths.

 **November 9, 1982**

Hannibal leaned back on the hood of Face's loaner car – a sensible four door sedan the dealer had offered when he'd dropped his car off for bullet hole repairs. Thankfully, the dealer was a "close personal friend" who asked no questions about the nature of the damage. Face had regarded Hannibal's suggestion of waiting until the fiasco with Ms. Davids was well and truly concluded before patching up holes with utter distaste. With other things on his mind, Hannibal had only spent minimal effort goading Face.

"Regardless of what else she knows or doesn't know, she's got the official documentation on Linh Hu Nao," Hannibal reported, glancing around BA's garage to make sure none of his come-and-go coworkers - most of them ex-cons or nameless immigrants - were listening in. So far, nobody had paid them any heed.

"I had a quick look at them in the motel," Face added. "They're pretty clear on the fact that you had nothing even remotely resembling orders."

BA growled deeply. He was doing his level best not to pace back and forth, but the anxiety was clear in his tone as he demanded, "What do you mean there was no orders? They think you went around killin' people for fun?"

It was a rhetorical question. Even if the Agency had believed that, Hannibal thought bitterly, a willingness to indiscriminately kill would have probably been a plus. They would have been able to send him on even more ethically questionable assignments in that case.

As BA ground his fist into his palm restlessly, Face finally pushed away from his leaning position against the car and sighed heavily. "How is it," he asked, tone dripping with sarcastic contempt, "that your orders keep getting _lost_?"

"I don't think these orders were lost," Hannibal corrected, eliciting deep frowns and expectant stares from both men. Reaching for his cigar, he took a long moment to find his lighter and didn't speak again until the smoke was curling up from the end. It was calming, in light of the information he had to share.

"The same man who signed my orders is the man Suzanne is working for," he explained. "His name is Ekhart and he was a real piece of work."

Face frowned. "So it's a cover up."

"Sounds like it," Hannibal agreed dryly.

"What about the Army's paperwork?" Face demanded, not ready to resign to the solid state of yet another false accusation.

"I mean... Westman had to approve our missions," Face tried hopefully, "even when he loaned us out to the CIA."

"Some of them," Hannibal clarified. "Not all. This one, I happen to know he never filed."

"Like the orders for the Hanoi bank job," BA growled, and Hannibal shrugged.

Face was clearly less than pleased with the prospect of taking the fall for another set of illegal and immoral orders. BA looked as though he was ready to bolt for destinations unknown, just to avoid the potential danger and certain discomfort of this conversation. Hannibal sighed as he focused on his cigar. After a long, uneasy silence, Face was the first to speak.

"You know," he mused lightly. "It's amazing to me that with all the red tape and protocol, so many of our operations failed to make it to the books."

"Well, two of mine that we know of," Hannibal reflected thoughtfully. "And to be fair, technically, we didn't even exist."

BA growled. "We existed enough for them to court martial us!" There was a loud _thunk!_ as his fist met Face's car with almost terminal velocity. "Ain't nothin' fair about any of this!"

"Hey, watch it, will you?" Face snapped at him. "This isn't even my car!"

"I ain't worried 'bout your car!" BA snarled back.

"Great," Face retorted with a roll of his eyes. "Well, you and Hannibal can start a club. But for right now -"

"Being on the run for robbery and treason ain't bad enough?" BA interrupted, ignoring him. "Now they want us to take the fall for killin' a bunch of people, too?"

The deep anger was sheeting off of BA in waves. Hannibal could understand why, but it wasn't going to help. Not only that, a few heads were starting to turn, shooting candid glances in their direction. "Take it easy, BA," Hannibal warned. "And remember, this is all about something that happened before I even met you - any of you."

"That don't matter," BA growled bitterly.

He was right, and Hannibal knew it. Their work depended on their reputation, and they all suffered for the sake of each other. If Hannibal was branded a murderer, so they would all be. But at the moment, lessening the insult to BA's personal character seemed a wise attempt at diffusing the man's anger.

"Alright, let's assume there's no paper trail," Face started, pacing slowly. "And let's assume Ekhart knows you had orders, because he gave them, right? So the question is whether he's acting alone or with the Agency's backing."

Hannibal studied his cigar, waiting for Face to follow the logic. As far as he could see, there was no reason to assume this was anything other than a cover up. So who had the most to gain?

"Do you really buy that the Agency as a whole would want to erase this?" Face pressed, watching Hannibal carefully. "I mean, they haven't exactly done a good job covering up the Phoenix Project..."

"It's possible," Hannibal answered without conviction. "But I agree; it's unlikely."

"That girl you got stashed would probably know," Face pointed out. "You got any plans for making her spill?"

Hannibal didn't answer. His gut told him Suzanne honestly wanted the truth. But even if that was the case, they couldn't prove anything. Their side of the story was the testimony of three fugitives against the word of a government agency - complete with documentation. And what would even be the point? Even if she wanted the truth and believed it, what was she supposed to _do_ with it?

There was a long moment of silence before Face spoke again. "You know, Hannibal, you weren't the only one out there."

Jolted out of his thoughts by a picture that didn't fit inside the framework, Hannibal glanced up and waited for Face to elaborate.  
"You had a whole team," Face said carefully, clearly going somewhere.

"All of whom are dead," Hannibal replied dismissively, not quite able - for all his effort - to hide the sting of those words. "You know that."

" _All_ of them?" Face challenged.

Hannibal frowned, considering. The deaths of those men weighed on him even fifteen years after the fact. He remembered them vividly. But Face was right; there was still one possibility.

"Breaker Jones," Face supplied, surprising Hannibal with his knowledge.

Shifting uncomfortably, Hannibal nodded. "Yeah," he finally admitted. "But I wouldn't know where to start looking for him."

"Well, according to Suzanne's file," Face continued, just as cautiously, "he's living in a Detroit suburb with a wife and three kids."

Hannibal blinked in frank shock and Face shrugged. "I knew what I was looking for when I saw the file," he admitted, answering the unspoken question. "The kind of thing that happened at Linh Hu Nao takes a toll. I wasn't surprised you had someone leave because of it. Hell, if it had been me - any of us..." Face shook his head slowly. "I honestly don't know what I would've done."

Drawing in a deep breath, Hannibal considered, for the first time in over a decade, the possibility of seeing Breaker again. Although they'd parted on good terms - as good as could be expected - if he had a family, the last thing he was going to want was rehashing gory Vietnam stories with well-known military fugitives. Just as there was a very distinct line to be drawn between the soldier they'd known as "Boston" and the man who lived quietly with his wife as Ray Brenner, so too would there be a drastic difference Pete Jones and the man Hannibal had once known as "Breaker".

"They sent her after me, specifically," Hannibal reflected quietly. "They don't want Jones."  
"Good," BA said firmly. "If he got a family, he don't need no trouble with the CIA."

"That's not the point," Hannibal said quietly.

"My point," Face interjected, "is that someone wants to shift blame for that incident so they've decided to file it under 'war crimes of Colonel Smith.' It's an easy fix to a complicated problem. But Jones -"

"- would have the entire CIA and all the documentation in that file to contend with if he tried to interfere," Hannibal interrupted with a glare. "Not to mention dragging his military career through the mud, to say nothing of his conscience."

"But if, by chance, there _is_ some question of guilt and innocence here - if there is someone, be it Suzanne or anyone else - who really wants to know what happened and wants it from a credible source..."

Hannibal shook his head. "His word is not going to stand up against the official documents of what happened."

"Not in court, no," Face agreed.

"Then why on earth would I want to drag him through all of that?" Hannibal demanded.

"Because if he can convince that woman we've got locked up in the desert," Face pointed out, "then _she_ has a chance of going back and figuring out what the hell happened. At the very least, it would make it clear who's trying to smooth this over. And if it is Ekhart, acting on his own..."

Face trailed off, and Hannibal sighed as he stood straight and paced a few steps away. He hadn't really given much thought to what he intended to do with Suzanne other than keep her fed and contained. Obviously he couldn't hide her in the desert forever, and he wouldn't want the inconvenience when he had absolutely nothing to gain. Maybe she could help. At the very least, she'd have something more interesting to cut her teeth on than chasing him around LA. Whether or not she'd be able to do anything with the truth was another story entirely.

"It's your call Hannibal," Face finally said, sensing his hesitation at dragging Breaker into this shit storm. "But either way, you may want to consider letting this guy know that someone is dredging this up. Because if, by chance, they think he may have the same information and pose the same threat you do, he has a lot more to lose."

Hannibal was quiet for a long moment. Then, finally, he nodded. He had reservations about using Breaker as a redeemer. But Face had a very good point - or at least a valid excuse. It was better that Hannibal should knock on his door than someone like Suzanne.


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

 **November 9, 1982**

Suzanne had spent the better part of the day killing spiders and scorpions that had found this trailer a nice place to hide. She hated spiders with a passion and, since she had no shoes, she had been forced to use a frying pan with a cracked handle as her weapon of choice. As the hours had dragged on, she'd kept busy trying to make the trailer safer. There was no electricity, and no light source - not to mention, no fan or even the slightest breeze - and since the sun had gone down, there was no telling what was crawling out of the woodwork when she couldn't _see_. She didn't want to think about it. And in the pitch blackness that had settled in around her, she was beginning to think that Hannibal wouldn't be back until morning. Or later.

When he finally did arrive, she made damn sure she was ready, glaring daggers at him the moment he stepped through the door. There was no part of her willing to let on that she was actually glad to see him. Maybe more accurately, she was pleased to see the kerosene lantern in his hand and the paper bag that smelled like food.

"How long do you intend to keep me here?" she demanded, frying pan still in hand.

"I told you." He set the lantern down in the center of the room and turned it up, then walked to the wall she was standing against and sat down a few paces away from her. "We're waiting for your bosses."

She growled with frustration. "And I told you, they're not coming," she snapped back. "Why is that so hard for you to believe?"

He didn't bother answering, only sat down and rested back against the flimsy wall, stretching one leg out in front of him without a care in the world for the spiders or creepy crawlies. Bending the other knee, he let his arm rest on it. Comfortable, casual, and completely relaxed, he didn't look like a man who was sitting with a hostage in an unsecured trailer in the middle of the desert. For her part, Suzanne was anything but relaxed.

"So," he finally began once he'd settled and fixed her in his gaze, "I have two proposed solutions. You can choose whichever you'd like."

She didn't move, simply glancing sideways at him as she waited for him to enlighten her. Although she was pretty sure she wouldn't like either of his proposals, anything was better than sitting in this trailer from now 'til eternity.

"I need to inform Pete Jones that our orders were conveniently lost," he continued smoothly, "just in case any of this falls back on him when they get nowhere with me. If he's willing - and that's a very big 'if' - you can ask him your questions."

Stunned, Suzanne stared in blinking silence. She hadn't been expecting anything nearly so compliant - so helpful. After a moment of awkward silence, she shook her head to clear it and stammered a few times before managing, "What's the second option?"

"Alternatively," he began with a cordial smile that immediately warned her that some incredibly smartass comment was coming, "I would be happy to give you your knife and a bottle of water, and we can go our separate ways right now. Of course, you're about seventy miles from LA and at least twenty miles from the nearest inhabited building. It's your call."

Disregarding his ludicrous second proposal, she concentrated fully on the first. He was offering to help her get to the bottom of this? Since when? More importantly, why? He didn't seem like the type to shift the blame, and dragging someone else into this fray didn't strike her as his usual MO, either. Of course, if his paranoia was well-serving, he was right that it would only be a matter of time before Pete Jones was confronted by someone to make sure he, too, stayed quiet. And if Smith was lying through his teeth, Jones would surely be the next on the list to pay for his crimes.

Wary of the offer, Suzanne watched him carefully. "Exactly what would my position be for this little reunion?" she demanded.

"Observer," Hannibal answered instantly.

She considered that for a moment. Her superiors wanted Smith, and no one else. Her assignment, such as it was, couldn't be simpler. But if there was someone credible who was willing to shed some light on the truth…

"I haven't seen him in years," Hannibal clarified. "He left immediately after that assignment. If he's willing to make a statement, you can take it back to your boss. If not, then at the very least he needs to be notified that he may be in the line of fire. Because should you succeed in _your_ assignment, and I get brought before the court of their choosing, they'll have all the authority they need to go after him and make this problem truly disappear."

Slowly, Suzanne nodded. "And I'm free to go after that?" she asked carefully.

Hannibal seemed vaguely amused by the question. "You make a nice hostage, Ms. Davids, but I don't have the time or energy to feed a caged pet."

Not sure just how offended she should be by that statement, she stared in blinking silence for a few moments. It was the first time since she'd met him that he was actually being cooperative. Maybe it wasn't in the way she would've preferred, but it was at least something.

Glancing at the ground beneath her, she saw a spider way too close to her feet for comfort. With a satisfying 'thwack' she flattened it with the pan. After making sure none of the now-flat spider's friends were around, she sat down, leaning against the side of the trailer just a few feet from Hannibal.

He was grinning at her, clearly finding her distaste of arachnids amusing. But for once he said nothing. Was he making an effort to not annoy her, or was he just trying to work things to his advantage? She had a feeling it was a little bit of both.

Taking a moment to scan her surroundings quietly, she finally admitted something she'd been thinking about all day. "You know, I never would've thought to keep a prisoner in an unsecured building in the middle of the desert."

"They did the same sort of thing in the jungle camps in Vietnam," Hannibal explained with surprising willingness. "Out in the middle of nowhere, nobody comes or goes even if they could."

She frowned, appreciative of the sudden openness in his attitude towards her but even more wary because of it. "I always thought the enemy had no trouble moving through the jungle to get to your camps," she said, reflecting on her not-inconsiderable research on the topic.

He smiled knowingly at her. "Not our camps, Suzy," he corrected. "The POW camps. The little ones, run by the VC."

The realization dawned on her and she dropped her eyes. But all she could manage was a quiet, "oh." Damn it, how did he make her feel so stupid? She had always been top of her class at everything. But talking to him, she always seemed to end up saying the dumbest things.

"So what made you think to compare jungle to desert?" she asked.

That was lame, and she knew it. But he didn't blow her off, or laugh. As he leaned back, he withdrew a cigar from his pocket and lit it quietly.

"They're equally dangerous," he said quietly, much to her surprise. "Equally empty."

He was actually talking to her - actually willing to answer questions - and she wasn't quite sure how to act. She'd spent so long trying to pry even the tiniest details out of him, she found herself waiting for the punch line, expecting that at any moment he'd clam up and say, "Ha! I told you a lie and you bought it!"

"When I was in training," he instead continued, "one of our survival exercises was to make it forty miles through the desert over a period of a few days. It was one of the things I was taking into consideration when I was debating whether or not it was even feasible to make a break for it in that camp."

"That camp." She knew what he was talking about this time. Years ago, he'd given a full debriefing about their escape from the POW camp in Vietnam. She'd read it several times over. But reading it on paper was not the same as hearing his firsthand account.

"Is that how you got out in the end?" she asked meekly, "Making a break for it?"

He smiled faintly. "You've read the file," he said confidently. "You know how we got out."

A tiny smile crossed her lips as well. "If this whole experience has taught me one thing," she answered quietly, "it's not to trust the files. People lie."

His eyes grew distant as he stared into the darkness of the shadows on the other side of the room. The silence lingered for a long moment. "People do lie," he admitted. "But not without reason."

It was obvious he was thinking about something in particular - maybe even something about the report of their escape. But she doubted she'd pry it out of him even if she were to try. Whatever it was, he didn't seem to be too broken up about it. He was more than confident - comfortable, even - with this discussion. Somehow she doubted if there was anything that would ever truly shake him. At least, not on a visible level. She'd read everything she could about him, trying to understand him, to find out who he was, how to calculate him. The paper version of him, however, was severely lacking. Who the hell _was_ he? She didn't want to admit it, but he fascinated her.

"How'd you get them to go with you?" she asked.

"Who?" he asked, startled out of his thoughts.

"Your men." She paused. When he didn't immediately answer, she reconsidered. "Better question - how did you get Peck and Baracus to go with you over a prison wall in the dead of winter? They had to know it was suicide."

Hannibal shut his eyes and puffed on his cigar again, a smile creeping across his lips. "So was damn near every mission we did in 'Nam," he continued. "There was never any question whether they would go with me."

"That takes a lot of trust," she observed.

His smile remained in place, and he opened his eyes to stare across the room again as he considered her words. "Trusting someone with your life is something every soldier does," he explained, turning to glance at her lazily. "That's not how trust is measured in our book."

Confused, she frowned. "How is it then?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying, with a great deal more introspection than she'd even hoped for. "When you realize that the people you're with know you better than anyone else - your strengths and your weaknesses - and you fill in the gaps for each other or die trying. You know all of their decisions directly affect your life. But you let them go on living, doing what they do, and you don't stop them, even out of fear or worry. You go with them, even, just to pull them out when they get in over their heads - and they will. Because it's what they do. I trust my team to be who they are - consistently, every time - and I know who that is."

She considered that quietly for a moment. "Living all your lives as one?"

He smiled knowingly. "That's a very good way of putting it."

If that was the case, it was no wonder nobody - the VC, the military, or any one of the dozen law enforcement agencies they'd outplayed - had ever managed to hang on to them. With three minds working together against one, they had every opponent outnumbered and outmatched.

There was a small, uncomfortable part of her that was in awe. What was it like to have trust like that – to be able to count on the people in your life no matter what? Most people experienced it, to some degree or another, when they were children – reliant on their parents, like it or not. But that was different. That was normal. Whatever it was that bonded him to his team – and vice versa – was not normal.

How did he manage to inspire that kind of loyalty? Was it the experiences – the proof that he would be there because he had been there before? Did that somehow elicit the same show of dedication? No, it had to be more than just a show. It had to be much, much more.

"Is that why they stay with you?" she asked quietly. When he didn't answer, she continued. "You all don't have to stay together. You choose to. Even at the cost of personal sacrifice, like Peck's car."

Hannibal shrugged slightly, relaxed back against the wall. "I don't ask why they stay," he replied. "And I've never had to ask where they'd go."

"Why?" she questioned, tipping her head with curiosity. "Because they have nowhere to go?"

He chuckled as if the thought of where they might go amused him, then finished with a half-shrug. "Because if we ever did get separated, I'd know where to find them."

Something about the way he said that had her staring at him again. It was so causal but still so sure, as if it was completely normal for three men to know each other so well they didn't need words to communicate. These men just _knew_. It was beyond loyalty; it was closer to symbiosis - a relationship so close they each depended on the other to survive.

She was still staring when he held up the bag he had been holding since he arrived. "How about you think while we eat?" He grinned at her. "Cold burgers detract from the culinary experience"

Reluctantly, she nodded, and reached up to take the bag. But her thoughts were far from the "culinary experience" as she quietly reflected on the man who sat beside her.

 **March 15, 1968**

The stream was not as flooded as it had appeared from overhead - it was much worse. Though only about ten feet across, it was swirling like whitewater rapids only missing the rocks to break it. What was normally a shallow creek, only about waist deep, was now flooded with the runoff from the recent monsoons. Hannibal could see the swirling that warned of just how fast it was running, and the leaves and sticks along the top flew by at an alarming pace.

"Hannibal, we're not going to get across that!" Glaze warned. His voice sounded a bit closer to panic than Hannibal would have preferred. But the challenge before them, and how difficult it may or may not be, didn't make any difference. Enemy in front and water behind, there was nowhere else to go but through. Frankly, they had a much better chance of survival going through the water than through the enemy if the amount of weapons fire was any indication of just how many there were.

"We'll make it," Hannibal said firmly, as if by sheer force of will he could speak their success into existence.

"We don't have a choice," Indigo pointed out, still firing in the general direction of the enemy as he backed up until his boots slipped in the mud and plunged into the running water.

Hannibal didn't have to confirm his statement of the obvious. He didn't even need to think about it. Their only choice was success or surrender, and failure never even crossed Hannibal's mind. They would get across, and it would just be one more harrowing escape from death, one more notch on his belt. He was used to that now; they all were. And although Glaze had been the one to voice his concern, even he seemed more than willing to simply shrug and follow Hannibal's lead, straight into hell if need be.

"Go!" Hannibal ordered, stepping between Indigo and the enemy as he waded in, focusing more on his steps than his shooting. Although it was unrealistic to think his position could do anything to really cover the man from the shower of bullets heading in their direction, the position Hannibal took was designed as much for moral support as actual help.

Unfortunately, it only took Indigo a few seconds to lose his footing. Water was a powerful force, and even if they hadn't been carrying a half ton of gear, pushing against the rushing current would never have been an option even for the strongest swimmer. Carried downstream and struggling just to keep his head above water, Indigo lost his grip on his weapon and Hannibal saw him flail wildly.

Over the rushing sound of flowing water and the rain of bullets all around them, Hannibal yelled at the top of his voice, "Go with it! Let the current take you!"

Glaze figured it out; the water would carry them further and faster than they could hope to run. Once they were out of the enemy's crosshairs, they could arrange another pickup or, if necessary, find their own damn way back to base. He dove into the water willingly, ducking under Hannibal's cover fire. But he didn't make it far. Only a few feet downstream, he suddenly gave an aborted cry. Hannibal only had a chance to catch a glimpse of the blood in the water where the man had been a moment before, and reacted almost without thought.

"Glaze!"

Into the water he vaulted and swam toward the place where the soldier had disappeared. But with the speed of the water, he already knew he was long gone. More importantly, Hannibal hadn't a prayer in hell of maintaining his position. Scrambling frantically for footing, trying to keep his head above water, he followed the source of the blood flowing downstream, hoping to catch up with Glaze's body and somehow - he didn't quite know how yet - keep him afloat and alive. Of course, that meant leaving the two men behind him to their own escape.

He caught a brief glimpse of the shore just before he was carried out of sight, and as the current pulled him under again, he saw the violent convulsions as enemy bullets cut through Schooner's torso. Hannibal didn't even have time for a gasp of air, much less a cry. He didn't see the man hit the muddy bank of the creek, but that's where he was when Hannibal surfaced again, further away now. A few steps behind Schooner, Finch dropped his weapon, fell to his knees, and did the sensible thing: he surrendered, hands in the air. Then they were gone, beyond the rush of water that pulled Hannibal deep beneath the surface again, flooding his mouth and nose.

Gasping and sputtering, full of adrenaline and with his focus torn in a half-dozen directions, Hannibal struggled to keep his head up. Bullets were still raining down on him as he twisted and turned, helplessly carried by the rush of water. The sudden scream of pain from his chest made it clear that one of those bullets had hit its mark. But he couldn't acknowledge the pain. If he stopped swimming, stopped struggling, stopped fighting, he would die.

With an instinctive panic, he realized he'd lost use of his arm. Thrown like a ragdoll, only just managing to stay above the water's surface long enough to suck in a breath along with mouthfuls of acrid water, he suddenly realized he was going to die. It was a shocking thought, and then, an infuriating one. He didn't come this far, live this long, prove himself so damn much just to give the enemy that kind of satisfaction! He'd not only live through this, he'd pull his team through it somehow. That was what he did; it was his role and what they counted on him for. He wouldn't let them down.

With a final burst of energy he didn't know he had, he kept struggling for air until suddenly, he hit something much softer than he'd been expecting. Brush had gathered against a fallen tree - it had to happen sooner or later. But more significantly, the lifeless bodies of both Indigo and Glaze had caught the impact of his own. He could only just twist enough to get a look at their faces and knew instantly that they were dead. Startled by the sight, confused by the blood loss and lack of oxygen, fueled by pure adrenaline, those higher thoughts of rescuing his team through some act of brilliant defiance were now swallowed up by concern for his next breath and nothing more. Even if by some chance they could still be revived, he was in no position to help them. He wasn't even in a position to help himself.

He used their bodies for leverage, pulling with his one good arm, writhing and struggling to free himself from the pack that was weighing him down. The current pulled at his legs, dragging him under the fallen tree, and it took every ounce of strength he had to wrestle the pack off and then, with agonizing pain, use his one good arm to pull himself along the bodies, the brush, the fallen tree towards the shore. It shifted under the combined weight of three men, threatening to give way and send them careening further downstream, and Hannibal clutched madly at anything that might give him purchase and help him claw his way toward solid ground.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

 **November 9, 1982**

Dinner had been finished for a while before either Suzanne or Hannibal spoke again. For her part, she realized as soon as she took a bite that she was too hungry to talk. Hannibal seemed content and at ease, even in the lingering silence. Then again, he always seemed that way. She used the silence to weigh what she had learned, and to watch him. She needed a course of action. There was no doubt in her mind she wanted to hear what Pete Jones had to say, but what would it cost her? Hannibal surely wouldn't make it easy out of the kindness of his heart, and he hadn't yet gotten to the part about what he expected of her in return. The simple fact of the matter is, in order to succeed in her assignment, he was still going to have to come with her in the end and help her explain whatever Jones might verify.

"It's no wonder you never got along with the CIA," she said, breaking the silence in the hopes of resuming the open, honest conversation he'd surprised her with earlier.

"Hmm?" He didn't even bother looking at her.

"That kind of… interdependence you have with your team," she observed. "It's not only unheard of, it's very much discouraged."

Suzanne knew perfectly well that "trust no one" was the unofficial motto of the CIA. It was drilled from day one. The problem with that, she was now finding, was her superiors who still expected her to trust them. And she had. Was that so foolish of her? Hannibal almost certainly would've said so.

"I never got along with the CIA," he continued quietly, "on the grounds that nine out of ten missions I pulled for them, it was always something or another about them trying to cover their asses. My team on the line for a stupid mistake that some REMF made."

There was nothing about that statement that helped ease her mind. She raised an eyebrow at him "REMF?" She could guess what the last two letters stood for but not the first two.

"Rear Echelon," he explained, glancing sideways at her. "Military language for someone who sits at a desk, without any field experience, and orders soldiers to their deaths because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing."

She frowned at that. Just how many of those missions in his file were caused by those types of screw ups? How much did it matter? When it came to war, solders died. Sometimes they died needlessly. She could see why a man like Hannibal would be frustrated with a system like that, where rank and politics mattered more than experience. Bad information combined with people who trained in war rooms instead of the battlefield, and the soldiers on the front lines paid for it. Suzanne had never been anywhere near a warzone, but this much she knew - it was a recipe for disaster.

"Is that what happened at Linh Hu Nao?" she asked hopefully.

Hannibal glanced at her. "Linh Hu Nao was a cover up," he agreed. "But it was also a desperate attempt to save our entire network of assets." He gave a tight, humorless smile. "Somewhere, you have to draw the line."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"If it was _just_ a cover up," Hannibal explained, "damned if I would have even considered following through on it. But there were a hell of a lot of lives at stake."

She stared at him for a long moment, evaluating his sincerity. It wasn't hard to tell he was being honest, and not simply because he had nothing to gain by lying. She had orders to bring him in, but she trusted her gut. With horror, she realized she trusted the fugitive sitting next to her more than she trusted her superiors. And she wasn't even totally sure she understood why. Maybe he just inspired that in people. Or maybe it was because what he said somehow made more sense.

"The man who _made_ that mess to begin with is going to be held accountable," she said with determination. "And whoever ordered that assignment to cover it up."

Hannibal gave a slight smile. "No he won't." There was no remorse or sadness in his words, they were just a statement of fact. "The CIA will keep that kind of screw up a secret to the bitter end."

Not impressed, Suzanne answered a bit more roughly than she meant to. "They also have every reason to make sure that the idiot who almost cost them every contact they had in Vietnam is removed."

"Removed?" Hannibal chuckled. "That idiot has had ten years to work his way up the chain of command. If he wasn't executed on the spot back in Vietnam, he's not going anywhere."

"Was he?" she asked without thought, only realizing after she'd asked it that Hannibal should have no way of knowing those details. But an answer really wasn't necessary. The CIA's patience was notoriously short for screw ups. People who made mistakes like that didn't get fired; they tended to have accidents. Frankly, the man responsible for the Linh Hu Nao fiasco deserved nothing less. And despite what anyone believed - including Hannibal, for that matter - she was going to bring down anyone trying to cover for him.

"The man who ordered that slaughter was cleaning up a mess," Hannibal said, as if reading her thoughts. "It was the only way to protect the assets."

" _His_ mess," she snapped.

"The Agency's mess," Hannibal corrected.

Frustrated and not sure how he'd ended up actually defending the moron who'd put him in this position, Suzanne growled. " _Somebody_ dropped the ball!" she cried. "Somebody should've been protecting those people, with their _life_ if need be."

"Which people, Suzanne?" Hannibal asked calmly. "The assets? Or the villagers?"

She pulled up short as those words hit home. As the shadows from the lantern played across the small room, she paused and took a few slow, calming breaths before continuing. "You and your men were ordered to deal with the fallout from someone else's incompetence. And whoever that someone else is, I want his balls."

"You're not going to get that from me, Suzy," Hannibal said with a sigh. "I was never given that information."

"Whoever gave your orders -" she tried.

But Hannibal interrupted quickly. "- was probably just following orders himself."

Folding her arms in a frustrated pout, she did her best not to sound like a petulant child as she continued. "Well, be that as it may," she said, "he's still the next step towards figuring out where the hell everything went wrong. If he's still alive, I'll make sure he pays. And if he's not, I'll make sure the blame is assigned where it's due."

Hannibal was quiet. Suzanne didn't continue for a long moment, just letting her mind wander. Those families, their children, his team… none of it mattered. Just a cover up. Suddenly aware of just how close she was to feelings that had no place here, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cigarettes. Nicotine and the pause would help her find that control again.

Although he continued to watch her with an unreadable look, Hannibal didn't speak again until after she'd tapped out her last cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "It's a cruel world, Suzanne," he said gently. "And a cruel business. But it's the one you chose."

Once again, Suzanne went silent as she studied him. After all of the cat and mouse games they had played, she wasn't expecting to find herself really talking to him. Putting her cigarette to her lips she took a long, deep drag before buried emotions came spilling out of her. Normally, every word she spoke was carefully considered to elicit the reaction and gain the information she needed; speaking was a calculated means to an end for her. Somehow, Hannibal had managed to get her talking without thinking. Now she was left in the awkward - and unfamiliar - position of not knowing what to say.

Tilting her head back until it was resting against the wall, she stared at the ceiling as her mind worked overtime to figure out what to do. Hannibal knew how much she wanted the men responsible, but he hadn't mocked or belittled her for it. Just the opposite, in fact - he was offering her an option. Once again she found herself wondering just who this man was and what made him tick.

Somehow, she knew instinctively that she would never truly understand him.

 **March 15, 1968**

What had happened here?

Hannibal wasn't sure. Lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, staring with blurred vision up at the jungle canopy, he couldn't think straight. The last few minutes - or maybe hours - replayed over and over in his mind like a broken slideshow, looping through the same mistakes. As the life drained from his body into the bloody, squishy mess of mud that would be his final resting place, he slipped away and then back again, the gunshots still echoing in his ears whether he was conscious or not.

So many mistakes...

Dazed by blood loss and confused by heatstroke, Hannibal could feel the blood running down the back of his throat from his nose, threatening to choke him. He was wounded in ways he hadn't even realized, from blows he didn't even remember, and he knew he probably wouldn't make it. But far from panic, the thought gave him a sense of peace. He didn't want to live through this. The thought of waking up tomorrow haunted him when he remembered that everyone in the world he truly cared about would never wake up again. They were scattered in pieces in this godforsaken jungle. They were dead, and their bodies would probably never even be recovered.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a calm counselor who wanted him to simply be at peace was chanting a quiet mantra over and over: it wasn't his fault, it wasn't his fault. But it was his fault and he knew it. He wasn't fully recovered from the sickness that had kept him in bed for the past week and he never should've let his stir-craziness overtake his rational thinking. The overconfidence that had returned again and again in his life to bite him in the ass had struck for the last time. He'd betrayed the trust of men who had, in the end, given their lives not for loyalty to their country but rather to his dignity.

The FAC had been right; it was too hot. To save one man, they had all given their lives. They never should have come, but he didn't want to admit that there was a job too hard, a mission too dangerous. That damned stupid pride and overconfidence had persuaded him that through force of will, he could simply bend the entire world to his will. He was responsible for so many deaths. It was his fault in so many ways...

He'd swallowed too much blood, and his stomach reacted accordingly. It was all he could do to turn his head to the side so that he wouldn't choke on the vomit. Still soaking wet and lying in the mud, the pain was excruciating, and he couldn't have moved if he wanted to. But the confusion and dark despair made it all seem very unimportant. He was dying, and he wished Death would hurry up already.

Every breath hurt, and he slipped further and further into the blood-soaked darkness. Somewhere, there was the sound of a helicopter. Somewhere, guns were blazing on both sides of a stupid, gory war. But where he lay, there was nothing but darkness. Slowly, it claimed him, and he willingly fed it his soul. The sound of calls, back and forth in English, might have been nothing more than a hallucination. But even if they were a rescue, he didn't much care. Everything he was would die here. He never intended to leave this place.

 **November 10, 1982**

Hannibal was awake at the first light of dawn, but there was no sense in getting up. For one thing, it was cold. For another, he had nowhere to be and nothing to do until Face and BA arrived. That fact that Suzanne had moved in tight against him, seeking warmth in her sleep, made him smile tiredly as he closed his eyes again and drifted back to sleep. When he awoke again, it was to the sound of a car engine. Quickly alert, he wrestled his hand out from beneath the blanket and looked at his watch. Almost eight.

The cold was fading as the sun rose, but Suzanne was still huddled close to him. Sitting up, he drew the blankets away and let the cooler air wake her. She stirred a little and let out a mumbled protest before curling in closer and draping an arm over his chest.

"Good morning, Suzy," he greeted.

Her eyes opened reluctantly, unfocused and heavy with sleep. Then she blinked at him as if trying to get her brain working. Hand on his chest, head on his shoulder... she looked at him in pure sleep-induced confusion. Suddenly, her eyes flew open wide and she tried to sit bolt upright and scramble away from him at the same time. "Son of a..."

The effect was comical, and he couldn't help but laugh. She looked like a startled giraffe on roller skates - limbs going in every direction, eyes wide and panicked. Finally, she came to rest on the far wall, facing him from a few feet away.

"Nice to see you, too," he greeted.

She glared at him, all the more amusing given the wrinkled suit, unruly hair, labored breathing, and sleep still in her eyes. He chuckled again as he stood, leaving the blankets on the floor.

"We'll be leaving shortly," he advised. "And there's coffee outside if you're interested."

A sound that was part snarl and part moan answered him. Apparently Agent Suzy was not a morning person. "I need coffee," she muttered. "And a shower."

"Afraid we don't have a shower," he said. He didn't bother even pretending to sound apologetic. "But one day without a shower, even in the desert, won't kill you."

She sighed. "I really, really hate you, you know that?"

It wasn't much of an insult and judging by the resigned quality in her voice, she wasn't going to push the issue. Instead she spent a moment making a valiant effort at bringing her hair under control. Hannibal grinned to himself. That was a battle even he wouldn't have even attempted. With a disgruntled sigh she gave up, her hair clearly the victor. Squaring her shoulders and holding her head high, Suzy stood and followed him out the door.

Face was leaning on the hood of yet another car as Hannibal stepped out into the sun. It was going to be particularly hot today if the temperature already was any indication.

"Morning," Face greeted with a smile, handing Hannibal a gas station cup of coffee, which he passed to Suzanne. She grabbed the cup from his hand, ripped the lid off, and took a sip before Hannibal even had a chance to take the next one Face held out.

Face smiled as he pulled a cigar from his pocket and held it out to Hannibal, and then tossed a pack of cigarettes to Suzanne. Suzanne caught the pack of smokes with one hand out of instinct alone. Staring at the pack in her hand for a second, a small smile pulled at her mouth as she stood amazed by the consideration he'd afforded her. Hannibal smirked. It was Face. Hannibal was sure he'd gotten the brand right.

Raising her cup in a salute to Face, she took another larger sip. "You're good."

"I know," he answered with confidence.

Suzanne raised a brow, amused. "If you can manage to make a shower and a clean set of clothes appear, I'll be _really_ impressed."

Face's smile grew. "With the right motivation, I can get anything."

She actually laughed at that. BA, who had been leaning against the car in silence, grimaced. Hannibal saw Suzy eyeing him up with a discrete glance over the rim on the paper cup. She would recognize him even though they hadn't met yet. Not like the man blended into a crowd.

"Were you able to confirm Breaker's address?" Hannibal asked. He didn't look at Face, instead lighting his cigar.

"He still lives at the same house he's been at for the past ten years," Face replied. "If we leave now, we should at least be halfway by nightfall."

Hannibal spoke from around his cigar, glancing away from Face and in the distance of the rising sun. "We'll drive straight through," he decided. "In shifts. I want this over with as soon as possible."

Opening the rear passenger door, Face smiled at Suzanne. "Well, in that case, we'd better get moving."

 **March 16, 1968**

The chopper was well and truly over its payload. Having done all he could to stabilize the one living soldier amongst the dead, Cipher lit a cigarette as he stared out over the jungle canopy and took a deep drag of calming smoke. Blood and water was draining from both sides of the helicopter, sprinkling the land below with the remnants of the dead. Running a bloody hand over his face to wipe away the sweat, Cipher looked again at the still and badly broken body of RT Cannon's One-Zero. He probably wouldn't make it. A bullet in his shoulder had ripped his chest open and hadn't come out again so God-knew what sort of internal damage it had done. Half-drowned and concussed, his mind - though drugged now with morphine - was probably long gone.

He'd come back to consciousness when they lifted him, probably thanks to the pain, just long enough to rant and thrash like a madman and protest that he didn't want to be rescued. He wanted to die there in the jungle, where he belonged. It wasn't the first time Cipher had seen that sort of insanity. Sometimes, it was simply shock and it wore off. He'd never seen a man truly recover from it, though. Perhaps the legendary Hannibal Smith would be the first. Cipher gave a half-sigh, half-laugh at the cynicism he couldn't help but feel. Legends were a dime a dozen in this god-forsaken place. If the One-Zero was lucky, he'd never wake up again, not unlike the rest of his team. The bloated, drowned corpses of the two they'd pulled out of the water lay oozing on the floor beside the bullet-riddled soldier they'd found further upstream, closer to the team's last known coordinates.

Touching down at the base, Cipher jumped down from the chopper quickly to let the medical teams have access. "What've we got?" asked the base captain before the blades even fully wound down. The look on his face was one of worry, as if he might somehow be held personally responsible for the team's massacre.

"One-Zero might make it," Cipher reported, finally removing the helmet he'd almost forgotten he was wearing. He ran a bloody hand through his sweat-damp hair. "The rest are gone."

It was not what Captain Roper had wanted to hear. Cipher could see that much on his face. But it wasn't much fun on his side of the reporting, either, and it was hard to feel sympathy. Glancing back at the helicopter and the bodies they were unloading, Cipher continued with what he hoped might actually constitute as good news.

"We did manage to recover the bodies," he reported, then frowned. "Most of them, at least. I think there's one missing."

Roper gave a heavy sigh, shaking his head in disbelief as he took a half step toward the chopper, past Cipher. "Jesus, what the hell happened out there?"

Cipher frowned as he turned and looked back at the chaos of coming and going from the returning choppers. They were neatly stuffing all the bodies into black bags, and Cipher frowned as he saw it.

"Hey, what're you doing?" he demanded as he slung the strap of his rifle over his shoulder.

The two men looked at him as though he'd just asked if it was warm outside today.

"That's Hannibal Smith," Cipher said roughly, just as he was intercepted by the base medic.

The medic's response made it clear he had entirely missed the point. "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do for him," he said with great consolation.

Cipher growled. He didn't need sympathy. If that man was dead, he needed an explanation. "Do for him!" he cried. "He was fucking alive and stable five minutes ago!"

The medic looked at the two working soldiers, back and forth with bewildered stares, as if it was simply too much to believe that the bloody, mangled body had actually been anything remotely like "stable." But Cipher knew his shit, and he wouldn't have left that soldier's side if he'd thought there was any chance he'd just slip away with no one even taking notice.

Pushing past the doctor, he walked to the seemingly-lifeless body, half-tucked into the black bag, and pressed a hand to his chest. "Heart's beating loud and clear, you fucking morons," Cipher said with a glare in the doctor's direction. "And unless you've got a better idea, I'm staying with this one to make sure it stays that way."


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

 **November 12, 1982**

The woman who answered the door of the dilapidated house with the large front yard and dirt driveway was not exactly what Hannibal had expected. Heavyset and dark-skinned, she carried a chubby baby on her hip and wore a wary, distrustful look as she studied them through the door with the missing screen. "Can I help you?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

"I'm looking for Pete Jones," Hannibal answered professionally, glad that Face, BA, and Suzanne had all remained at the bottom of the porch steps. He didn't want to appear any more intimidating than strictly necessary.

"That's my husband," she replied, her rough tone not softening. "What's this about?"

Hannibal gave a reassuring smile. "Mrs. Jones, your husband and I served together in 'Nam."

He didn't even have a chance to finish his explanation before her entire demeanor changed. Bursting into a full smile and bouncing the child with even more enthusiasm, she threw open the screen door and nearly knocked him over backwards. "Oh! Well, please, come on in!"

Startled by the sudden and unexpected welcome, Hannibal exchanged brief glances with the entourage behind him before following her inside the modestly furnished house with an amused smile. Whatever pretense she was operating under, Hannibal considered, it could only work to their benefit. He hadn't expected such a warm welcome.

"He only started try to track down old war buddies a few months ago," she said quickly as she ushered them all in, rushing through her explanation like an eager child on Christmas morning. "Been tellin' him to do it for years. Won't talk to me about anything from that time and I thought - oh, it doesn't much matter what I thought. So good to meet you! Glad you're here!"

In the midst of her excitement, she took a long look at all the people filing into her house. Her eyes lingered, not surprisingly, on BA and his ample gold chains. The man's fashion sense always drew stares. "You uh... all knew my husband?"

"Not exactly," Hannibal replied. "But we were all in the same division. I'm Hannibal Smith." He offered a hand, which she shook with a smile, still jiggling the baby on the other side.

"Oh," she answered vacantly. "Well, I'm sure he'll remember. Like I said, he doesn't talk much about what happened there."

Finally, the woman's eyes locked on Suzanne, who looked far worse for wear than the rest of them, and before Hannibal had a chance to make introductions, Pete Jones' wife was in full-blown "mothering" mode.

"Oh, honey, you're a mess!" She put out a hand as if to pull Suzanne under her wing and looked back at Hannibal. "What happened?"

Face smirked at the overly concerned tone and shot a glance at Suzanne. "Bet you could get that shower here if you ask nicely," he suggested.

"Oh, absolutely!" the woman cried.

Suzanne had no opportunity to protest even if she'd wanted to.

Face exchanged glances and a shrug with Hannibal as the woman turned and called over her shoulder for her husband. "Please," she invited them. "Come on in and have a seat. I'll make a pot of coffee. And I'll see what I can do about getting you some clean clothes."

"Thank you, Mrs. Jones," Suzanne replied. "But –"

"Please," the woman interrupted, "call me Tanny."

"Tanny," Suzanne corrected with a smile. "But please, don't go through any trouble on my account."

The picture of politeness and courtesy, Hannibal watched Suzy with some amusement. Was she really just being polite? Or was it that she didn't want to miss a minute of this conversation? It was hard to tell.

In any case, Tanny's reply was lost as Breaker appeared. "What is -"

He stopped short at the sight of them, eyes fixed on Hannibal with a look of shock. Though older, he was still completely recognizable. Feeling a bit more worse for wear than Breaker looked, Hannibal smiled and gave a slow nod in greeting. "Breaker," he greeted calmly. "You look good."

"Pete," he corrected automatically. "Please."

Hannibal nodded with understanding. "Of course."

A long, uneasy silence passed between them, neither certain of what to say. Suddenly, Hannibal had the entirely unfamiliar sensation of being an intruder. People handled the trauma of war differently, he knew. Some embraced it, some buried it, some ignored it altogether. He had no idea which category Pete Jones fell into, and considering the mess he'd come to drag the man into, Hannibal knew he'd better approach the topic cautiously.

Face was the one to finally break the silence. "Templeton Peck," he offered, extending a hand. "This is BA Baracus and Suzanne Davids. A... friend of ours." His hesitation was quickly covered over by a tactful smile.

"I know who you are," Pete replied, surprising them all. His wary gaze lingered on Suzanne. "Well, most of you."

He had to know something was wrong, especially if he knew anything about their lives for the past few years. Not to mention, he'd probably no more expected to see Hannibal again than vice versa.

"The Agency," Hannibal finally explained, as simply and candidly as possible.

Pete shifted uncomfortably, and looked in the direction of Tanny and Suzanne, then back at Hannibal. "What about them?"

Hannibal gave a sigh, relieved that the ice had been broken and the man was at least willing to talk. "I need your help."

 **March 16, 1968**

Hannibal awoke to the sound of helicopter rotors and searing pain. Confused, he drifted in and out for a moment before determining that he wasn't caught in someone's fucked up idea of an afterlife. He was alive, and he was being transported.

"You with me, Colonel?" yelled an unfamiliar voice over the thumping of the blades overhead.

Closing his eyes again, Hannibal ignored the question. He wasn't anywhere, with anyone. He was only in pain and darkness, watching his body as if separated from it. That vacant body shook, convulsed with such sobs that the man - a medic, he suspected - was checking to make sure if he could still breathe, knife out and ready to perform a tracheotomy if needed. A flash of anger, swirling in the myriad of emotions that broken man felt, made his fist tighten. He had one good arm, and he used it to claw at the fatigues of the medic looming over him. Opening his eyes, he glared at the man, daring him to make that cut.

"Hey, man," the medic said, lowering the knife away and taking Hannibal's hand instead. "You're gonna make it. Just hold on."

Hannibal slipped away again. When consciousness returned, he was on a gurney, attended on either side by men and women in fatigues. Chaos swirled all around the field hospital as the most serious injuries were shuffled promptly into operating suites. Hannibal was taken to one of those, with the medic from the chopper only a few steps behind rattling something about blood types and bullet fragments.

As he was lifted onto the operating table - a crude metal platform in a well-lit but still dingy olive tent - his fragmented and heavily drugged thoughts locked onto the nurse just a few feet away. On her hands and knees near the opening to the tent, she was sobbing as she yelled in the general direction of the heavens, "Why do you do this to these men? Why!"

Turning his head the other way, noting how heavy and detached it felt from the rest of his body, he saw on the other operating table a man with both legs and both arms missing. Whether he was still alive or not, Hannibal couldn't tell. With only a vague thought that perhaps the dead were the lucky ones, he slipped into darkness again.

 **November 12, 1982**

Surviving the war in Vietnam had been a mixed blessing for Pete Jones. The wounds had healed, but the memories lingered - sometimes too strong to bear. He didn't have to say it for Hannibal to know; he could tell simply by the shadowed, half-vacant look in his eyes as he gripped his knees, mouth set in a grim line.

"I really don't like this Hannibal," he said low, as if he were afraid his wife might hear from the other room where she had disappeared with Suzanne.

Hannibal didn't speak. He didn't like it either. Pointing that out would be senseless.

"I've been minding my own business," Pete went on, "paying my taxes. Hell, I won't even jaywalk. I left a salaried position in the Army to work in a meat department of a grocery store because I don't want my life in 'Nam to come here. It's not..."

He trailed off, looking almost ashamed as he locked eyes with each one of them. He lowered his head, cradling it in his hands. "I'm sorry. I've got no right to complain to you about this. I've heard what you guys have been through and I… I don't even know what to say."

Hannibal could hear the sincerity in the man's voice. He knew he was living a life they would never have a chance for, but that didn't make his life any less difficult.

"We understand you want to make a clean break," Hannibal said softly. "You gave a hell of a lot to this country, and you have every right to live in peace now. If I could make this all go away without involving you in it, believe me, I would."

Pete's hands unclenched and he ran sweaty palms over his jeans, casting an uncomfortable glance toward the hallway. "What does she want me to talk about?" he asked.

Hannibal was silent for a moment. He knew what the reaction would be, and he almost hated to instigate it. When he finally spoke, it was quiet, as gentle as his voice ever got. "Linh Hu Nao."

As soon as Hannibal said the name, Pete jumped up from his seat. "Son of a bitch!"

Face smiled tightly. But beyond that, none of them reacted to the sudden outburst. Stalking around the coffee table, Pete paced across the floor, two steps towards the window before spinning back towards them.

"They ordered that damned assignment!" he cried, too loudly. "What the hell do they want to know from me?"

Again, Hannibal hesitated. And once again, he spoke as softly as he could. "The way it came to Suzanne," Hannibal answered steadily, "we went rogue."

Pete stared at him for a long moment in complete shock. Then, without warning, he spun and swept the lamp off the table angrily. "God damn it!"

As the lamp hit the floor and the bulb shattered, Hannibal's eyes narrowed slightly. He wasn't surprised to see anger, even violence from the man who'd spent so many years in war. But he'd been separated from Pete for a long time, and wasn't sure just how concerned he should be. With nowhere to aim the frustration, it was coming out in all directions.

"I still have nightmares about that god damned assignment!" the man growled.

Beyond him, Hannibal saw Suzanne and Tanny appear in the mouth of the hallway and keep a safe - wise - distance. To his relief, Tanny wore a look of concern rather than fear. Nothing about her demeanor suggested this kind of outburst was a common occurrence.

"They had _no_ right to give us those orders to begin with and we knew it!" Pete cried. "Now they're looking to pin the whole goddamn thing on us?"

Hannibal watched him quietly for a moment, then nodded slightly in the direction of his wife. Pete pulled his anger under control the instant he saw her. He put his hands over his face and collapsed in the chair by the window. Tanny set the baby on the floor near the toy box before moving to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. Reaching up, Pete patted her hand.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"It's alright, hon." Tanny smiled at him, and for a second Hannibal felt something unspoken pass between the two. Forcing a smile Tanny look at the rest of them. "I'll just go see about that coffee," she said as she left the room.

Pete rubbed his hand over his eyes, like he was trying to wipe away the memories of that day. It wouldn't work, Hannibal knew. There was silence as the man took a few deep breaths, then stood again and paced slowly, keeping his eyes away from everyone. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the walls, the floor, the windows.

"What do they want?" he finally asked.

Cautiously, Suzanne came closer, skirting around him at a safe distance and moving to stand by the sofa. Hannibal was aware of her, but didn't look up. "I suspect they want to make sure that it never goes public," he answered quietly.

Pete scoffed. "Why the hell would any of us _want_ to make that public?"

"Better question," Hannibal said, speaking more easily now that Pete's anger was clearly under control, "why do they care about that particular assignment at this particular moment? Because if they wanted to bury us, they could've done it legitimately. They didn't need to make something up."

"Great," Pete answered dryly. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Hannibal didn't answer the rhetorical question and Pete sat down again, head in his hands. The silence lingered for a few uncomfortable minutes before he looked up again, casting a brief glance at Suzanne before fixing again on Hannibal.

"What do you want from me?" he demanded with a completely neutral, detached monotone.

"If they fail to get me behind bars," Hannibal explained, "they could escalate. And it could put you in their crosshairs too, unless we cut them off at the pass."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Pete asked, flinching just slightly at Hannibal's well-established pattern of preempting the enemy's attack.

"They don't want it public," Hannibal said. "The safest thing for you to do may be to make it as public as you can."

Pete stared, dumbfounded. "Are you serious?" he laughed, but there was no humor in it. "What do you want me to do, give an interview to the press?"

"Well, you could go to the press," Hannibal replied thoughtfully. "Though that may put you in a somewhat compromised position. You don't need a war crimes trial to complicate your life right now."

He didn't really consider the words before he spoke them, and was caught slightly off guard by the outburst from the implication that Pete could be a war criminal. "We were under orders!" Pete snapped back, every muscle tense.

"You'd still go down," Face said flatly, finally speaking up as the voice of experience. "Even if you prove the orders, they'll say you should've refused any order that violates the terms of warfare."

"I _know_ that!" Pete was on his feet and pacing again. "Every soldier knew that and so did the Agency. Never stopped them from sending us out there to do that shit."

Face exchanged glances with Hannibal, not wanting to poke this situation any more cruelly than was absolutely necessary.

"Well, before you turn to the press," Hannibal offered, "Suzanne here would like to try and take your testimony up the chain of command at the CIA, and try to get to the bottom of the whole mess."

Pete shot a quick glance at her, and she continued where Hannibal left off. "I don't know where your assignment came from," she offered a bit timidly, "or just how far up the chain of command it originated. But whoever gave the order to cover it up, chances are they answer to someone. It's at least possible that whoever they answer to doesn't know the whole story."

Pete stared at her for a moment, then turned his eyes to Hannibal again. "What if I say no?"

Hannibal didn't answer. Better to let him work through that himself.

"What if..." He paused and took a deep breath before starting again. "What if I'm just not willing to drag all of that shit up again?" He glanced at Suzanne, clearly distrustful. "The kind of stuff I remember from that day is not what you're interested in hearing anyways."

She took a deep, slow breath. "Mr. Jones, I understand that you -"

"Don't," he cut her off, glaring at the too-calm tone. "Don't fucking patronize me."

Suzanne dropped her head. Hannibal was quiet for a moment, watching Pete, but he let her make her own recovery.

"I can't force you," she said softly. "And I won't try. But you realize who you're dealing with. If they want this to go away, they won't stop at Hannibal."

"So why haven't they come already?" he demanded. "God knows I make an easier target than a fugitive."

Shifting uneasily, Suzanne hesitated on her response. "They may not have suspected you to be a threat," she finally answered. "If you weren't fully briefed, then only Hannibal has the whole story. What you did may not, in and of itself, be what they want to cover up."

"Why _wouldn't_ we have been fully briefed?" Pete asked, frowning deeply.

Hannibal had the better answer for that. "Because damn near everything we did for them was need-to-know," he explained. "The fact that I shared details of our assignments - the whys and hows - with my team was, technically, against the rules."

"They expect that we did a mission like that without even knowing why?" Pete asked incredulously.

"If they did expect that, they may know better now," Suzanne replied quietly. "When I -" she shot a brief, uncertain look at Hannibal "- abruptly left LA with the target I was supposed to bring in, my partner would've confiscated my notes. And everything I've learned up to this point is in there."

Hannibal saw the anger flash in Pete's eyes, and quickly interjected, "To be clear, she had no control over that." Although far from relaxed, Pete looked a bit less inclined to rip her to shreds as he cut his gaze back to Hannibal. "But it is a valid concern that they may consider you a threat now, whereas they didn't before."

"What does that mean?" he demanded, directing the question at Suzanne like a well-aimed bullet to the chest.

She took a deep breath and put her shoulders back before answering. "Worst case scenario, they try and sweep it under the rug."

It was a technical term, in Agency-speak. And Pete picked up on it instantly. "A kill order?" he cried, eyes wide. "Are you fucking kidding me? Here? How can they even conduct an operation like that here on American soil?"

She lowered her head again. "Legally, they can't. But they -"

"I have a _wife_!" Pete interrupted angrily. "A family! Didn't we bleed enough for you bastards?"

As the target of his rekindled anger, Suzanne set her jaw and didn't speak.

"I left all of that back in Vietnam!" he continued. "I'm a fucking model citizen. You have no god damn right to bring this into my home!"

The baby on the floor chose that moment to whimper, looking uncertainly back and forth at all the strangers that caused such anger and raised voices. Pete's demeanor changed instantly, and he pushed himself away from the fireplace mantle to lift the child, muttering soothingly to him until he settled. Observing silently, Hannibal waited and thanked God for the gentleness of the man with the small boy.

Although he was primarily focused on the baby, Hannibal could tell from the lines in his forehead that he was thinking about what his options really were in this situation. His calm and tranquil life had suddenly been invaded by the one thing he had never wanted to deal with again. If Hannibal could've changed that, could've kept him out of it, he would've. But at the moment, they had no choice.

Finally, Tanny entered the room again, rambling apologies which Pete smiled away, handing the baby over to her. As she left, carrying the baby off towards the kitchen, Pete paced a few times back and forth, then slumped against the wall, dropping his head and staring at the floor. No one spoke. Finally, he looked up and back over at Hannibal, locking eyes with him.

For just a second, it was as if they had been transported back in time. Hannibal had seen that look before, in tents and hootches and com centers all over Southeast Asia. It was a look they had all given him at one point or another - when they were faced with something they didn't want to do, or weren't sure what the hell the 'right' thing was, but they trusted him not to steer them wrong. It was a look of someone who trusted implicitly, and without question, even when it hurt to think about. Time and geography had changed a lot of things, but it hadn't changed that.

Letting out a deep breath, Pete gave a stiff nod. "Alright," he said quietly. Very slowly, his eyes turned to Suzanne, and locked there, dead and cold. "What is it you want to know?"

Suzanne licked her lips slightly, hesitating, and made her first question count. "Who gave the order?"


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

 **March 20, 1968**

Hannibal awoke with a gasp, eyes flying open and fists clenched hard around the blankets beneath him. The visions flashed behind his eyes. He could feel eyes on him, an unnerving tickling of his sixth sense, and he drew in a long, painful breath before taking a proper look around the room. In the corner, seated quite comfortably in what looked like a very uncomfortable chair, a young soldier sat watching him. Dressed in clean but well-worn fatigues and sporting the classic green beret, the man looked passively amused as he sat with one ankle up on his opposite knee, watching.

It took several tries before Hannibal's dry lips were able to move in time with the words he wanted to speak. "Who the hell are you?" he croaked, eyes sliding closed involuntarily in the drugged haze of morphine and lifesaving endorphins.

The young man was in no hurry to respond. He stood, and the sound of his footsteps on the hard floor seemed to echo in the tiny room. A lighter clinked, and Hannibal opened his eyes again as he was greeted by the smell of smoke. The young soldier held out a cigarette - a much-appreciated offering. But it was more difficult than he'd been expecting to lift a hand and receive the gift. After several attempts, the man finally realized the dilemma and set the cigarette between his lips.

"Sergeant Jack Harring," he finally answered, lighting a cigarette of his own. "Call me Cipher."

Hannibal took a few weak drags and felt the blessed nicotine fill his lungs. "Do I know you?" he asked when there was no further explanation.

"No," the man answered simply. "But I know you. Or, at least, I know about you."

Memories came back quite suddenly - who he was, how he'd ended up here… and just how alone he was. Suddenly, all those rumors of his reputation meant everything and nothing at once. All of those predictions of his ultimate failure, how he was bound to get every one of his men killed, had culminated in one big "I told you so" to end his career. What was worse, he didn't even care. He wasn't even sure he wanted to live, much less did he have anything to prove with all the people who were undoubtedly shaking their heads in silent disapproval.

Walking back to his chair, Cipher resumed the same oh-so-casual, reclined position, gaze firmly fixed on Hannibal. For a moment, they stared at each other. Then, too tired to keep up with the charade, Hannibal closed his eyes again and turned his head to let the cigarette ashes fall to the pillow rather than his face.

"You really wanna die?" the young soldier asked suddenly.

Hannibal blinked in frank shock at the blunt force of the question. He didn't even know how to respond.

"You been saying it for days, in and out of consciousness. But I gotta say, if you do -" he paused for a drag on his cigarette "- it seems strange you're trying so hard to survive. You never should've made it off the operating table, much less this far. And yet, here you are."

A flicker of anger sparked somewhere deep inside of Hannibal. The young soldier's tone was so casual it was almost mocking. How could he dare to speak like that to a man whose entire life - let alone his career - had just catapulted into hell? Too exhausted to give voice to those thoughts, Hannibal instead demanded with as much authority as he could manage in his weakened state, "Do you have a reason for being here, sergeant?"

"Sheer stubborn pride," Cipher answered honestly, with a hint of a smile. Hannibal waited expectantly for more, but the young soldier made him wait longer than what might be consider courteous before continuing. "See, you're the only one who lived through that extraction and if you die, I don't count that as a win. So I'm here to make sure you live."

"A win?" Hannibal repeated in disbelief.

"I pulled you out of that jungle when you wanted to stay there and turn into fertilizer," Cipher said tactlessly. "But if you die anyway, what good are my rescue skills?"

Hannibal frowned deeply, and spat the remaining butt of the cigarette onto the floor. "I didn't want your rescue," he growled. "And I don't need you to babysit me, either."

"Yeah, I know," Cipher answered lightly. "But here we are. And now that you're fully conscious, I'd say chances are pretty good you're gonna pull through."

Patience already worn thin, Hannibal growled under his breath. "Get out."

Cipher remained still for a long moment, then finally rose with a halfhearted, "Yeah, okay."

He only took a single step towards the door before turning back to Hannibal. When he spoke again, his voice held none of that casual, devil-may-care lightness. "Look, I don't know what happened out there, but I can guess." The somber tone made Hannibal wonder, just for a moment, if he knew more than he was letting on. What had he seen of this failure that had cost the lives of everyone Hannibal cared about? How much did he manage to figure out? It would, perhaps, be a good gauge of how much the rest of the world would learn.

"We both know people are gonna talk," Cipher continued. "You're gonna have to learn how to tell them to go fuck off."

Hannibal's eyes narrowed. "What is this, a counseling session?" he demanded, bitterly. "Next you're going to tell me you're a qualified psychiatrist."

Cipher gave a half-smile. "Just a medic," he answered. "But I've seen plenty of guys where you're at - ones that made it and ones that didn't. If you decide you don't want to live through this, I get that. Just make sure it's for the right reason."

"Your 'win' -" he spat the word with disgust "- is the least of my concerns, sergeant."

With the shrug he gave, that carefree attitude Hannibal had initially seen poked its head back through his serious tone. But he didn't merely shrug off the rest of what he wanted to say. He kept going, in that same authoritative tone far above his rank.

"You're a soldier, or you're not," he stated, looking Hannibal straight in the eye. "If you're not, who cares what they say about you. But if you are, then get your ass up out of that sickbed and go kill the motherfuckers who did this to your men." He paused just long enough for a respectful nod before adding an appended, "Sir," and leaving the tent without another word.

Lying still in the pain-filled silence that followed, Hannibal suddenly felt more alone than he'd felt in his entire life.

 **November 13, 1982**

A clock was ticking, and Hannibal could hear the breathing of several people. He felt the hard floor beneath him, blankets, pillow, and was hit with the smell of coffee almost as quickly as the nicotine craving kicked in. Finally opening his eyes, he sat up. Face and BA were both wrapped in blankets on the living room floor of Pete's too-quiet house. Suzanne was on the couch. Asleep - all of them. It had been late by the time they'd finished last night.

Hannibal looked around for the source of the ticking and found the clock on the wall. He was barely able to make it out in the dim, early-morning light. Stretching his stiff muscles, he pushed himself up, grabbing his pistol out from under his pillow and tucking it into the back of his pants. He was sure he smelled coffee. Without taking the time to really get his brain in working order, he wandered towards the kitchen – the logical place where one would find coffee. The light over the kitchen sink was on. Coffee was brewed. The back door was open.

He poured a mug and stepped out through the screen door into the cool, early morning air. His eyes immediately came to rest on the man sitting in the lawn chair with a cigarette and his own cup of coffee. Staring off into the distance, Pete was looking out from the back porch, past the trees, past the horizon to some unknown point in eternity. Behind the large back yard was a small creek and a wide open field, untouched by the developers that had built up the suburbs to the south. It was calm and peaceful, unfenced in the back and privacy-blocked from the neighbors on either side with trees and bushes rather than fences.

Eyes unfocused, Pete was holding on to a forgotten mug, and a cigarette that was mostly a trail of ash. Hannibal recognized all the signs of a man reliving the past, and he was careful to make a bit of noise as he approached, not wanting to startle him. Even though his eyes never left that far off place he was looking at, Hannibal knew that Pete was aware of his presence.

"It's going to be a beautiful sunrise." The man's voice was gravely from too little sleep and too much history. It was low and quiet, carried on the heavy air of dawn.

Hannibal sighed as he sat down in the lawn chair beside him, not speaking. Like so many times before - every time he was forced to confront long-buried memories of war, in fact - the silence often spoke louder than the words.

"It's funny the things you remember," Pete said quietly. "Like… I remember that the sun never really rose or set there. It just appeared. And the only way we knew it was there was because things were lighter. You couldn't see it through the trees. And when the rains came you never saw it at all."

"Could see it in the camps," Hannibal said quietly. "The bases. CCN at Da Nang, watch it come out of the ocean."

"Da Nang," Pete repeated. "Where those goddamn sappers came in out of the ocean and massacred all the guys in their sleep."

Reaching into his pocket for a cigar, Hannibal avoided eye contact. "You weren't even there for that."

"No." Pete glanced up, and Hannibal could feel his stare as the end of the cigar caught light from the Zippo. "But you were."

Cigar lit, Hannibal replaced the lighter and nodded slightly, but didn't glance back at the man. "Right smack in the middle of it," he said, staring out at the empty field with the trees sprouting up here and there.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pete shake his head slowly and raise his cigarette. He took a deep, slow drag. "Sometimes I really wonder how in the hell it is that you're still alive, Hannibal."

Hannibal smiled, but the cocky, self-satisfaction that would have normally gone along with the smile was absent. "Me too," he admitted quietly.

There were several long moments of comfortable silence as he took a few sips of coffee, waiting for his brain to engage. He wasn't surprised to see Pete awake; he'd never had trouble with mornings. But there was no feeling that they needed to fill the silence.

"So which one of those two was my replacement?" Pete finally asked.

Hannibal gave a brief snort of laughter. "What makes you think you could ever be replaced?"

Pete rolled his eyes. "Fuck, I don't need your flattery," he said with a knowing smile.

Taking a sip from his mug, Hannibal let the silence linger a moment longer before replying. "They all died, Breaker," he finally admitted, barely louder than a whisper. "The whole team. I was the only one who survived."

Pete said nothing, letting the silence serve as a memorial. But the way he lit another cigarette with the end of the first made it clear that it was no easier for him to hear than for Hannibal to say.

"Sorry," he finally managed, pausing to draw deeply from the smoke. "I didn't know."

"Never looked them up?" Hannibal asked, genuinely surprised.

Pete shrugged. The silence lingered. Finally, he took another drag and answered softly. "Guess it was just easier to pretend it was… another life or something. I don't know."

"I understand," Hannibal lied.

Sitting up straighter to try and mask his uncomfortable squirm, Pete changed the subject abruptly. "So these two," he said gruffly. "SOG?"

It was almost a rhetorical question, an invitation to talk about less painful topics.

"Face and BA came from a second team," Hannibal explained. "We were together about four years before we got burned on a mission up in Hanoi."

"Yeah, I heard about that," Pete admitted. Tapping the ashes from his smoke, he took another long drag. Hannibal put his head back, breathing in the damp morning air. Conversation felt more awkward than the silence. For the moment, he was content to just sit still and feel the cool breeze. It was going to be hot today, he could already tell.

It was several minutes before Pete moved. Shifting forward slightly, he stretched out just far enough to stub out his cigarette in the ash tray on the patio table. With a soft sigh he leaned back into his chair and put his legs out in front of him, making himself comfortable before looking for the first time that morning at Hannibal.

"I hear you went into freelance work," he said lightly.

Hannibal nodded. "You might say that."

There was no demand, no question, in Pete's words; just an interest. It was his way to try and bridge that empty void between Breaker, the rock solid soldier, and Pete, the quiet family man.

Hannibal took a puff his cigar, letting the smoke roll around his mouth. "It's not what I'd call lucrative, nine times out of ten." He shot Pete a grin. "But it sure is fun."

Pete chuckled. "Knowing your idea of fun, I never thought I'd hear you found it back in the civilized world." There was a raised eyebrow and a questioning look as he took a sip of his coffee. "Word is, you're the ones to go to when no one else can help."

That pretty much described the missions they had in the Army, too, except this was different. They didn't have to follow anyone else's orders or rules. More importantly they didn't have to risk their lives for pointless political jockeying.

"They say you're... helping" Pete had searched for that last word. The wrinkle in his forehead was back as he watched Hannibal, trying to find a place for the pieces of his past which were now tied into his present and future

Hannibal cast a brief, knowing smile in Pete's direction. "I'm not made for a quiet life and a picket fence, Pete. The army doesn't want us and we're just too damn good to hire out as mercenaries." He smirked at that. "So what else is there?"

Pete smiled back. Clearly he agreed with Hannibal's well-earned cocky take on how good the team was. It was something he would understand; Pete knew how well his own team had functioned. It was almost like a heart. All the separate parts and chambers, each doing their own thing, but still functioning and working in unison, making one seamless whole.

"To be honest, Hannibal, I have a hard time imagining you doing anything else," he admitted.

It was more than just a casual statement. Hannibal could hear the approval and the hint of pride in Pete's voice. The team and being a part of it was something Pete was still proud of—even if it was only a memory to him, an accomplishment. No matter how the Army had tried to take that away from him - from all of them - nothing would ever completely erase the satisfaction of knowing they were the best of the best.

Hannibal watched Pete out of the corner of his eye as he drained his coffee cup and turned his attention to the land around them. By the way Pete was furrowing his brow, Hannibal could tell he was taking time, trying to find his words.

"You know Hannibal, twenty-four hours ago my biggest fear was that I wouldn't have the rent this month," he said uneasily. "Now I'm wondering if some fucked up pencil pusher at the CIA has finally lost his shit and is going to try and kill me over something that happened fifteen years ago."

Hannibal lowered his eyes. "I know."

"It scares the piss out of me," Pete admitted softly. "Because I've got a lot to lose. On the other hand, makes me think how lucky I am to have so much to lose."

There was nothing Hannibal could say to that. He didn't try.

"You think Suzanne is going to really be able to do something about this?" he asked.

Hannibal didn't bother to try bullshitting him. "I don't know," he said flatly. "But she'll either fix it or she'll hit a brick wall. Once I know where the brick wall _is_ , I'll set a charge underneath it."

Pete laughed. "Now that sounds like the Hannibal I remember."

"Keeping tabs on her will at least help me to find out who's responsible for this whole mess," Hannibal continued.

"She seemed surprised to hear Ekhart was the one who gave us the orders," Pete noted. "You didn't tell her our orders came from the same guy who wrote up her orders?"

"I didn't tell her anything," Hannibal sighed. "It was more credible to hear it from you."

Pete snickered to himself. "The way she dove for that phone makes it a little hard to think she'll do anything other than make a bigger mess of this."

Hannibal smiled. The moment she'd heard the name, she'd wanted to make the call. It took a few moments of calming her down to make her realize that she wouldn't have a damn thing to say. Calling right now would just give Ekhart a heads up and so far, there was nothing to prove that he'd acted out of line. Or, more importantly, that his superiors didn't already know.

"Anything we attempt is risky as hell when we don't know who knows what," Hannibal said quietly. "Suzanne will clear that up for us. Then we –" He cut off suddenly as a quick flash out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He shouldn't have even seen it - shouldn't have noticed it. But his eyes snapped to it like a magnet.

"What the hell?" Pete eyes were locked on it, too, confirming that Hannibal hadn't been imagining things. "Did you see that?"

"I did," Hannibal answered flatly.

It was only a quick flash, the rising sun reflecting off of something very small. Hannibal cut his gaze away, searching out of the corner of his eye for a repeat, rather than staring directly at it. It could be nothing. But if it was something, it was best not to stare at it.

"You got anything in those trees that might make a reflection like that?" he asked quickly.

"Like a rifle scope, you mean?" Pete replied, also watching out of the corner of his eye, head down. "Hell, no."

It could've been nothing. "In that case, I say we go in."

"I think –"

Another flash as the sun caught scope just right. Instinct. Hannibal was moving before he had any idea why, grabbing Pete and falling on top of him to the floorboards of the porch. He cried out in pain, but was already scrambling for the door almost before Hannibal had a chance to register the smell of blood. If he was moving, he wasn't dead. Without thought, Hannibal followed him, through the open back door and around the counter, backs to the cabinets and out of line of sight for that scope.

"Face! BA!" Hannibal yelled. "We got a sniper in the back yard!"

 **November 13, 1982**

Suzanne was on the floor and reaching for a gun she didn't have before she even managed to process the words that came with Hannibal's startling yell. When the hand that went to her hip came up empty, she muttered a low, "Shit," before crawling after Face and BA, who were already halfway to the kitchen.

"Where?" Face asked, hesitating at the doorway. The back door was still open, and whoever was out there - a sniper, had she heard that right? - still had a potential shot if they crossed to where Hannibal and Pete were crouched.

"Two hundred yards, one o'clock," Hannibal reported coolly.

Pete was both conscious and moving, holding his hand to his shoulder as the blood seeped through his fingers. Startled at the sight of the blood - they'd opened fire on a civilian? - and standing in an oversized T-shirt and boxers, Suzanne blinked a few times and tried to get her brain to engage. Thankfully, Hannibal seemed fully alert, setting his pistol on the floor as he slipped his outer shirt off and pressed it against the wound. He didn't have to tell Pete what to do.

"Where's Tanny?" he demanded as Pete applied the necessary pressure, wincing at the pain.

"She's asleep on the second floor," Pete gasped through the pain. "Along with the kids. Safest place for them right now."

Ignoring the exchange, Face turned to Suzanne. "Friends of yours?" he challenged, bitterly.

"If they're my guys, then there's four of them," she answered automatically, watching Hannibal grab his backup weapon off of his ankle. "One on each side. They'll hold their position and one will move in to try and force us out. Maybe with a fire." She was surprised she managed to get so much coherence out at once, but chalked it up to the adrenaline of suddenly realizing she was in a life or death situation.

"Why'd they shoot?" BA demanded. "Your snipers that bad they can't hit a mark from a hundred yards?"

Was she really supposed to have an answer for that? At a loss, she simply glared back and quipped, "Lucky for you."

"Alright, enough." Hannibal's order silenced everyone and everything, including the confusion in Suzanne's own head. Suddenly, he had the complete and undivided attention of everyone in the room.

"Guns," Hannibal said, focused completely on Pete. "Where?"

Pete winced as he tried to shift position. "Hall closet, upstairs."

"Walkie talkies?" Hannibal demanded.

The blood was seeping through the shirt as Pete shook his head weakly. "No."

"Face, get those guns loaded," Hannibal ordered quickly. "BA, check the perimeter from the windows. I want to know where they are. Assume we've got them on all four sides."

The two members of Hannibal's team were moving instantly. "What kind of guns?" he asked Pete as they disappeared. He talked fast, and it was clear that he expected fast answers and fast compliance. Casting her a sideways glance, he snapped his fingers and she just about jumped. "Suzanne, get over here," he commanded, pointing to the floor beside where she was crouched as if instructing a dog to heel.

Oddly enough, she didn't think twice before scrambling over to him.

"There's a 12 gauge and a 30.06, M1C," Pete struggled. The way his head lulled to the side made Suzanne wonder just how long he'd be able to maintain consciousness. "I was just about to sell the damn thing for –"

"Ammo?" Hannibal cut him off, withdrawing a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket and slipping them over his hands.

"In the orange ammo box in the top of the closet. There's a pistol too. 9-mil." The words came out between clenched teeth. Pete gave a weak smile. "Man, I don't miss getting shot."

Hannibal smirked, as if bullet wounds were about as commonplace in his world as scraped knees on playgrounds. Finished now with the gloves, he seemed perfectly at ease in spite of the fact that they were most definitely under attack. And a serious one too. If that was a sweeper team out there, their mission was as do-or-die as it was illegal.

"At least it gets the adrenaline pumping," Hannibal said with a grin.

Hannibal handed his pistol to Suzanne, and his backup to Pete. "Anyone comes through that door," he nodded to the open back door, "shoot first and ask questions later. Got it?"

Suzanne nodded as she took the pistol and checked to see if a round was chambered.

"Keep pressure on that wound and keep your back to the wall," Hannibal ordered Pete. He looked like he was struggling to remain conscious, but he nodded just the same. "They won't fire at what they can't see."

"Hannibal!" BA's voice was just loud enough to hear, hardly a shout but no less intense for the lack of volume. "I got one movin' in slow."

Hannibal exchanged glances with Pete, then with Suzanne. "Stay here; don't move."

Then he was gone.

 **November 13, 1982**

"Face, you got those guns?"

The question came up the stairs just as Face finished loading the ammunition into the M1C. It had been a hell of a long time since he'd fired this model. Not that he was complaining; given the current circumstances, it couldn't have been more perfect. He was surprised Pete had it – that he hadn't simply classified his weapons training with those things he would rather forget about. But hell, maybe he used it for hunting. It seemed a bit of overkill, but who knew?

"Guns are on the floor and loaded, Colonel," Face reported. "Where's your runner?"  
"Northeast corner at about a hundred fifty yards," BA answered. "Other side of the creek. He laying low."

Hannibal was coming up the steps as Face looked around to orient himself with directions. There was a closed door – he suspected bedroom – on the north wall. Tanny was probably asleep in there, and the school aged boy and baby in another. Any or all of them would probably wake up to the sound of the gunshot. But he'd deal with that problem when it came.

He knocked on her door, but didn't wait for a response before pushing the door open. "Tanny, I gotta come in."

He didn't even look at the bed, instead heading straight for the window - a nice alcove that matched the one downstairs. Perfect. Pressing his back against the wall, he silently cracked the window open. His target was easy to spot as he crawled through the tall grass of the field, not even in camo, and Face could feel an unnatural calm sinking in to the core of his being as he raised the rifle. Positioning it on the windowsill, he grabbed a book off of the nearby shelf to brace it and sighted it off of the tree that the advancing figure was just coming up to.

The man was on his feet as the warning shot hit the ground only a few inches to his right, exchanging the pitiful attempt at stealth for speed as he bolted toward the house. Face heard Tanny stir as he tracked the running target, feeling nothing as he slowly exhaled. He didn't kill now, as a rule. But these men were dangerous, and they'd slaughter Pete and his whole family without a choice if they weren't stopped. A bullet in the leg ought to make short work of that.

It was still perfectly natural, second nature to handle the sniper rifle. As he readied his finger on the trigger, he felt that heady, disconnected sense of surety. He fired without thought and the man fell, hitting the ground at the same moment. Face pulled the barrel in. Until they knew where the others were, staying in the open window any longer than he had to was risky. They could get a bead on him more easily than he could on them.

"What's going on?" Disoriented and confused, Tanny was sitting up in her bed, pushing her hair back with one hand.

Face headed back to the hallway. "Do me a favor and stay in bed," he said, smiling cordially as he passed.

He didn't give her a chance to respond before slipping out of the room and shutting the door behind him. Maybe she was still half asleep, but at the very least, she'd seen the rifle in his hand. If she had any sense at all, she'd know when to follow orders.

Hannibal was tucking the pistol into his belt as Face approached. "One down," Face reported proudly.

"That means probably three to go," Hannibal answered, grabbing the shotgun.

BA frowned deeply. "You think she tellin' the truth that this is a sweeper team?"

"I don't know how much she knows," Hannibal said. "But I wouldn't be entirely surprised if when she dropped off the grid, whoever's calling the shots moved to a plan B."

"Plan B?" Face repeated, amused. "Break every jurisdictional law in existence and kill a few innocent American citizens? You know, I'm starting to develop a real opinion about this supervisor of hers…"

"Three more," Hannibal said again ignoring the sarcasm. "We need to get them to move."

"Or at least give away their position," Face added. He gestured loosely around him. "We got windows on all four sides. I can hit whatever you can shake up in those trees. And it's a hell of a lot better than playing on turf they've had time to scope out."

"We've got a path out the front," Hannibal said. "If we stay low, we should be able to get out without too much of a risk."

BA nodded, unquestioningly. "Which one you wanna draw out first?"

"The one that shot at Pete couldn't have moved far," Face suggested.

Hannibal grinned. "Why settle for drawing out just one?"

Something about that glint in his eye and the way his smile broadened made Face exceptionally wary of the impending jazz-filled orders. "What are you thinkin', Hannibal?" BA asked.

Hannibal turned, smile still full. "Face, where's your car keys?"

With an audible groan, Face shook his head. "Damn it, that's not funny, Hannibal," he protested. "What is it you don't understand about loaner?"

Hannibal's grin widened. "We'll give it back."

"Yeah, riddled with bullet holes!" Face cried.

BA shook his head, wearing a small grin he couldn't quite hide as Hannibal held out a hand expectantly for the keys. Face glared as he fished the key out of his pocket and smacked them down into Hannibal's waiting palm. Then, without even a moment's pause, Hannibal handed them over to BA and declared, "Let's go!"


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**

 **March 27, 1968**

Tem wasn't exactly sure when he'd lost his mind. It had been sometime after Devon had left the camp, during those weeks that passed achingly slow and left him feeling more and more isolated from everyone around him. Soldiers rotated through, fulfilling their tours and returning to civilization, sometimes in body bags. Tem had been well enough trained in how to interact with them. He'd observed the relationships that formed out here - friendship and dedication combined with the certainty of knowing that every time the enemy shelled the camp, anyone or everyone could die. Nothing was long term, and that made it all feel very superficial.

It had taken as much research as reflection to understand why Devon had requested the transfer into the Fifth. When he figured it out, the insanity suddenly made much more sense. It wasn't a death wish, or an adrenaline fix, or fame and glory, or even purpose and meaning to a soldier's sacrifice that had driven his friend to the front lines of jungle warfare. It was the team.

Recon teams were different than A-teams. They were smaller and especially intimate. Men in an A-camp lived and died together in close quarters. But the recon teams took it a step further. Their very breath counted on their ability to work together as a team, to know what every other man was thinking and feeling at any given moment and to work in tandem. Seeing them mourn the death of a team member was like watching a family grieve for loved ones, and yet they took in the next soldier with the full knowledge that they would grieve again. It was something deeper and more meaningful than Tem had ever seen. And suddenly, he knew not only why Devon had needed to go, but why he needed to follow.

"You're requesting a transfer to CCN?" Captain Rikland sounded both amused and concerned by the paperwork on his desk.

Tem stared at him, his gaze unwavering. "Yes, Sir."

The relationship between Rikland and Tem, while it had eased with every passing week that Tem came closer to being one of those good ol' boys, had never been so friendly that Tem had expected the man to give a damn when he requested to transfer out. He was a bit caught off guard by the sudden interest in the way Rikland asked, "Why?"

There was no way on God's green earth Tem was prepared to elaborate on his true reasons for following Devon into the depths of hell. Instead, he offered only a simple answer: "Just following some advice, Sir."

"From Sergeant Young, I suspect," Rikland guessed. It was only mildly surprising that he'd made the association. Two men transferring out of the same camp with the same destination in mind was notable, and the friendship between them had not escaped the captain's notice.

"Yes," Tem confirmed simply. Though the question seemed very direct, there was no point in denying it.

Rikland studied him for a long moment, his expression serious. Tem frowned, realizing he'd never seen that look in the man's eyes before. It was a look almost like true sadness - the kind that the recon teams on stand down in Da Nang showed when they talked about their fallen comrades. Tem had seen that look quite a lot while he'd been poking around in search of an excuse to pursue such a ridiculous fate. He hadn't expected to see it on Captain Rikland's face.

Finally, the much older man lowered his eyes and cleared his throat. "Devon Young is dead, Tem."

For several, lingering seconds, the words didn't sink in. It seemed a simple statement, and yet it caused such complexity and chaos inside of Tem that it took a very long while to process. Rikland was speaking again before the implications had truly come to light.

"If you still want to go, I'll authorize it," Rikland said. "But I'll tell you the same thing I told him. I'll be sorry to see you go. Most guys who go up there don't come back. Those who do tend to come back in body bags."

The image of body bags - Tem had seen a few - made the words finally hit home. Was Devon in a body bag? The sudden realization that he would never see the man alive again hit him with the force of a truck.

"How…?" he stammered, realizing only after he'd opened his mouth how weak and uncertain his voice sounded. He cleared his throat before trying again. "Do you, uh…?" Closing his eyes, he clamped a fist around his emotions and racing thoughts and forced them into submission, pushing his shoulders back. "Do you have any information on how he died, Sir?" he asked as formally and neutrally as he could manage.

"Somewhere in South Vietnam," Rikland answered. He sat back and folded his hands. "I didn't ask where."

"With a recon team?" Tem questioned. It would have been disgusting if he'd died from some random shelling after all he'd gone through to make his death significant.

"Yes," Rikland said confidently. "With Hannibal Smith's team."

Up to that point, Tem had given no credence to the rumors of Hannibal's careless ways of playing fast and loose with his team's lives. But suddenly, every campfire horror story he'd heard from the soldiers in the Da Nang bars came rushing back to him.

"They didn't recover his body," Rikland finished.

For a long moment, Tem waited for more. But it seemed there was nothing more to tell. Finally, Tem drew in a sharp breath and nodded, laying Devon to rest with a moment of silence before focusing his stare on the paper lying on the desk. "You said you'd sign off on the transfer request?" he prodded, directing the conversation back in the direction it needed to go.

Rikland raised a brow, as if caught off guard. "You still want to do this?"

Jaw set, Tem nodded abruptly. "I'm not afraid of dying, Sir."

For another long, uncomfortable silence, Tem stood there under scrutiny. Then, finally Rikland signed the orders. As he handed them back for Tem to deliver by himself, he stood and gave a formal salute. Tem returned it. "Good luck out there, Sergeant," Rikland said quietly, with more caring concern than Tem had thought him capable of.

Tem nodded, offered the requisite "Pleasure serving under you," then turned away and stepped out into the humid, night air.

 **November 13, 1982**

Suzanne was in work mode and she knew what to do. The familiar drumming of adrenaline was kicking up her heart rate, making her senses hyper acute. She was in control and focused on the task of staying alive and keeping the man beside her conscious.

"Are you with me, Pete?" Her hand was tight on his wound, but the blood was still seeping through, slowly saturating Hannibal's shirt.

"I can't believe there are goddamn snipers in my yard," Pete growled. He was grimacing in pain, and plenty angry. But he was very much alert and aware. Good sign.

She gave him a tight smile. "Neither can I," she answered honestly. In fact, she didn't suspect he was even half as surprised as she was that the situation had progressed so far so quickly. This sort of thing broke every rule in the book. If there was any reason to think it even _could_ have been anyone else - a disgruntled employee or an angry parent from Pete's kid's school, for instance - she would have sworn that was the case.

Peeling back the shirt that was wadded up against the injured man's shoulder, Suzanne examined his wound. There was a large hole high up, close to where his shoulder met his neck. "I don't see an exit wound," she observed with trepidation.

"Uh huh," he muttered back.

The bullet was just a couple of inches away from being a kill shot. Painful, and it would severely limit the use of Pete's arm until it healed. But it wasn't bleeding quite fast enough to suggest it had hit an artery. And he was still breathing fine, so it hadn't hit his lung, either.

"Fucking hell, it hurts," Pete growled through gritted teeth, trying to stay focused as the blood poured out too fast. They needed an ambulance. But more than that, they needed those men outside gone before they killed everyone in the house.

Every time she came back to that thought, it was harder and harder to push down the anger that accompanied it. The people out there - the ones trying to kill them - were her coworkers. They were people who had trained with her, took the same oath as her, supposedly followed the same rules. Murdering American citizens - and on American soil, no less - ran contrary to everything they stood for. She would see the man behind this nailed to the fucking wall. That thought added to the energy coursing in her blood. She had a goal and a target, and it felt good.

Putting pressure back on the wound, she gave Pete another smile. "We'll get you out of here and taken care of soon," she promised.

Anything Pete said in reply was lost to the out by the shockingly loud sound of a rifle being fired from inside the house. Jumping at the noise, Suzanne automatically brought up the gun in her hand, as her head turned towards the steps, the direction from which the gun was fired. Heart pounding, from the corner of her eye she saw Pete smile.

"Knew that thing would come in handy someday," he said weakly.

Suzanne had no chance to respond before Hannibal and BA appeared from the steps, moving very fast and quiet - so silently, in fact, she hadn't even heard them. Just how in the hell could they move like that? It was beyond impressive. Without so much as a word or a glance in her direction, they were out the door and gone. The sound of Pete chuckling had her head swiveling back toward him. She was sure the shock of watching those two head out into the open made it to her expression. Pete winced as he relaxed back against the cabinet watching her.

"Leave it to Hannibal," he mumbled drowsily. He paused, and winced at the pain as he slid down a little further. "He always did like the direct approach."

"Direct?" she challenged, unable to hide the worry that punctuated her voice. "It seems closer to suicidal."

"He's been called that before," Pete admitted. "And not surprisingly."

Suzanne stared at Pete for a moment. Although pouring blood from a significant injury, he didn't seem the least bit rattled by being shot. In fact, it seemed more like an inconvenience than a life or death situation. By all counts, he should be panicking right now, and she was sure most people would be. But not Pete. Even more shocking to her was the fact that he didn't seem overly concerned about the snipers outside, as if he simply had complete, unfailing confidence in Hannibal's ability to make them go away. Over a decade away from serving with him, Pete Jones still followed Hannibal's orders and answered his rapid fire inquires without so much as a hesitation. In fact, _none_ of them had questioned or hesitated, not even her.

"Don't think too hard about it, Suzanne," Pete advised gently. "You'll never figure him out."

She couldn't help it. How in the hell could anyone inspire that kind of confidence? It wasn't that he'd never failed; the report on deaths of his first team made that much clear. But there was something about the way he moved and spoke that made people _want_ to follow him. She hated to admit that; it made no sense. She didn't even like him. But witnessing the transformation from cocky and arrogant to confident and deadly made her very aware of why he observed her confidence. Like a moth to the flame, his authority power called to her. How she reacted to him made her feel… well she had no idea what the feeling was, but he made her want to figure it out.

She took some comfort in the fact that she wasn't the only one who responded to his authority. Even Baracus, who'd had altercations with list of officers longer then some phone books, deferred to Hannibal. _No_ one had been able to keep Baracus in check. If it hadn't been for his downright genius for mechanics, he would have spent his life in the brig. Yet she had just seen proof that Hannibal not only kept him in check, he had Baracus willing to follow him into a shooting gallery. She had read about it, even talked to Hannibal about it. But to see that kind of loyalty in action was something else all together.

The adrenaline was flowing faster the longer Hannibal was gone. In a way, she was no safer in this house than he was out there. What if he was killed? What would she do then? Clenching her hand tighter around the gun Hannibal had given her—his gun—she felt a surge of something she couldn't classify or explain.

"Don't worry, Suzanne." She looked at Jones again, stunned by the fact that he was the one comforting her when he was the one with the bullet wound. "That man's guardian angel is really on his toes."

She wanted to correct him, but she didn't dare speak. Yes, she knew Hannibal would be alright. She knew it the same way that she knew the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. How did she know it so clearly?

Pete paused for a moment and shut his eyes, breathing slow and steady. "Funny," he said weakly. "Man hasn't changed a bit since 'Nam."

A bemused smile crossed her lips, in spite of herself. "He was a cocky pain in the ass then too?"

Pete didn't answer, only smiled. She heard the car start, the engine rev. She'd been expecting to hear shots, or maybe screams of pain, not the sound of a car spitting gravel. Heart pounding, she found herself wishing like hell she could see out the window. She just couldn't help but wonder, with stomach tingling intensity, what in the hell he was doing now.

 **November 13, 1982**

Every sense, every fiber in Face's body was on high alert, scanning for movement. That sixth sense that had kept him alive in the jungle was working full force as he settled into position at the open window. He could see Hannibal and BA moving towards the car. But his attention was focused further off in the distance. Snipers. They were out there, and he knew it. But he had the higher ground…

Had he gone into any other division of the military – somewhere other than Special Forces – it probably would've been as a sniper. He'd been taught on the side by a few Marines near Saigon, and he kept up with it. There was nothing like it - looking for any signs of the enemy, trying to draw a bead on them in the same moment that they thought they had the upper hand.

A familiar calm filled him as he found that stillness inside. He knew what to do without thinking; it was second nature. Slow, deep, controlled breaths, a steady hand, sense alert for any sign of movement, any giveaway to the enemy's position. It would be a quick sighting, and then drop the target. One shot, he wouldn't need any more than that.

The car's engine turned over before Hannibal had the passenger side door shut. BA was driving. Face watched as the car lurched forward, heading straight thought the rose bushes between the detached garage and the house. Kicking up dirt and gravel, they plowed over the flowers and into the side yard. The front bumper clipped the large bird bath, and then… movement. A shot shattered the back window, just as the back end of the car whipped around in a perfect one hundred and eighty degree arc.

Face saw it out of the corner of his eye. His attention was far more focused on the muzzle flash in the trees. It took him only a fraction of a second to adjust his aim, but his concentration made it feel as though he had all the time in the world. The location of the flash was burned in his memory; he had his target. Through the head or the chest? Face curbed the natural instinct and aimed for the leg of the shooter. Then he waited for the natural pause in his breathing, and squeezed the trigger slowly and evenly. Before he even heard the report of his shot, the target dropped and Face was back inside the window with his back to the wall.

Shotgun fire heightened his alertness even more. As he peered back outside, he saw Hannibal in the window of the car, shooting as the car headed towards the trees where the first shot had come from. Taking the shortest path, BA smashed right into the patio furniture, sending it scattering.

Face was ready, and reacting without thought, training and experience had it down to muscle memory. There was nothing else going on, noting else existed as he waited for the muzzle flash. It wasn't long before the fire was returned, this time through the windshield. Aim, find your breath, and squeeze the trigger. One more shot, one more down.

BA threw the car in reverse, and sped backwards, leaving deep ruts in the grass. As Face relocated to a window with a better aim, the car lurched forward and headed back around to the front of the house. The bird feeder never really stood a chance.

The last shooter was more careful. Seeing his team picked off, one by one probably had something to do with his caution. Face's loaner was less than one hundred yards when he took a panicked shot at the fast-moving car headed in his direction. Panicked or not, he was a decent shot. It hit almost dead center in the cars grill. Steam and fluid from the radiator exploded from under the hood, making it hard to see. Hitting the windshield wipers, BA swerved to the left, heading back toward the driveway.

Everything else was background noise and arbitrary as Face spotted the last one. The rifle was aimed and he was squeezing the trigger before he ever consciously processed the muzzle flash. One shot, one last hit and, it was done. Still Face sat there for a moment, eyes scanning, looking for any more threats.

His car mowed over the flower bed, crushing petunias and marigolds under the tires until it finally came to a steaming, hissing, wheezing, quivering stop. There was a sputtering, knocking sound from the engine just before it stalled, leaving the car in almost exactly the same spot it had started in.

Face waited, watching as BA and Hannibal got out of the car and gathered up the injured men nearest the house. Only then did he let out a tired sigh. Damn it, he was going to have to come up with one hell of a story to explain just what had happened to that car.

Finally, he turned away from the window, and headed back down the stairs, passing Tanny - who had not stayed in her room but instead stood guard in the open doorway of her sons' bedroom - on his way down to Suzanne and Pete.

"You okay?" he asked with a frown as he looked at Pete.

"I've just been shot," Pete answered with a smirk. "What do you think?"

Face smiled back, and glanced at Suzanne, who was watching him carefully. "What happened?" Tanny asked, standing now at the top of the steps. "Is it over?"

Face nodded. "Yeah. It's over. Call an ambulance, will you?"

Pete was trying to get up. "I wanna see them." He glared indiscriminately at the wall in front of him as he used all his strength to push through the pain and blood loss and focus on his goal. "I can't wait to tell them what I think about them bringing this shit back into my life."

 **April 6, 1968**

Flesh wounds always healed faster than the ones the eyes couldn't see. Hannibal was on his feet again in only a few weeks' time. But that didn't mean much. Without a team, an assignment, or a direction, he reported to Westman as ordered and waited to hear the outcome of his failure. If he was lucky, they'd bury it - and him - in a mountain of paperwork and circulate a rumor that he'd died with the rest of his team. Alternatively, there was a distinct possibility that he was on a one-way trip back to the States. He'd done nothing criminal, and he was fairly certain he would receive as much of a hero's welcome as the army ever afforded its veterans. But he didn't want to think of what the rest of his military career might entail.

"You're looking good, John," Westman lied, offering a glass full of moonshine and gesturing for Hannibal to take a seat before he did the same, behind his desk.

"Fit for duty, apparently," Hannibal replied dryly. He was very careful to maintain neutrality in his tone. He was sure Westman had gotten the full rundown from his stay in the field hospital, and he didn't need another goddamn psych evaluation to determine whether or not he meant any of the things he'd said while half-conscious. His concern was compounded by the fact that he wasn't exactly sure how much of it he did mean.

"So how long do you need?" Westman asked, tapping out a cigarette and grabbing the shiny Zippo off of his desk.

Hannibal blinked in confusion that quickly turned to wary distrust. How long did he need to pack his bags? To finish recovering and settle into an office? "Sir?" he answered simply, careful not to say anything until he knew exactly what was being asked.

Westman drew on the cigarette and tipped his head to the side to blow the smoke. "Well, you're not going to retire, are you?" he asked with such casual conversation, it made Hannibal's brow furrow. In truth, he'd considered retirement. Was Westman setting him up?

"I haven't decided," he answered safely.

Westman stopped abruptly, and stared him straight in the eye. "You're serious?" he asked with such a pointed, dead-to-rights tone that Hannibal knew he'd better answer this question correctly.

"I can only take so much bureaucratic bullshit," Hannibal said slowly and carefully. "If that's what I've got lined up in my future, I might as well quit while I'm ahead."

"Who said anything about bureaucracy?" Westman challenged, still studying him warily. "I thought you'd want to rebuild your team."

Stunned by the proposition, it took Hannibal a long moment to fully process those words. As if sensing his confusion and uncertainty, General Westman heaved a great sigh and leaned forward, elbows on the edge of his desk. "Look, John, I know you lost some good men out there. And knowing you, I'm sure you feel like it was your fault. Hell, it might be; I don't know. But this I do know: I got a stack of problems on my desk that need fixing and I got a man who swore to me he could fix them with the right team. So I'm asking you again, how long do you need?"

Still shocked, it took Hannibal longer than it should have to process the question and longer still to come up with an answer. "I don't know," he replied truthfully. "I won't take a team I haven't proved out there. And I don't even know where to start looking."

"Start here," Westman suggested, grabbing the top folder off his desk and glancing inside to make sure it was the right one before tossing it across the desk to Hannibal. "Medic named Jack Harring. Says he knows you and sent the request up the chain of command straight to me. He wants on your team."

Hannibal took the folder and peered at the sheet inside with the man's photo at the top. "He's the medic from the extraction team," Hannibal observed quietly. "He sat there with me in the hospital until I came around."

"Yeah, I know," Westman replied. "He told me."

Wary of what else the medic might have told Westman, Hannibal glanced up. "There's another one, too," the general continued, moving on without any further discussion of Hannibal's injury. "A sergeant Ray Brenner."

"Brenner," Hannibal repeated. "I know that name."

"Said he saw you in action once," Westman finished, handing over the second folder. Then he sat back again. "Anyone else you want, you're going to have to find yourself."

Hannibal didn't look inside the second folder. Instead, he stared across the desk at Westman's calm and relaxed pose - drink in one hand and cigarette in the other. If there was any uncertainty or worry he felt at offering Hannibal another chance in the field, he didn't show it. But surely it couldn't be this easy.

"What about…" Hannibal choked, took a breath, and started again. "What about the families?"

"They'll be informed," Westman answered with calm confidence. "You know how this works, John."

"And Sergeant Young?" he asked.

At that, Westman finally hesitated and took another drink and a drag from his smoke before replying. "Officially, he's listed MIA," Westman explained. "We didn't recover his body."

"I didn't see him go down," Hannibal said firmly.

Westman gave a tight, uncomfortable smile. "That doesn't mean anything and you know it."

"It means he could still be alive," Hannibal corrected.

Drawing in a deep breath, Westman sat forward again. He finished his cigarette with one last drag, then crushed it out in the glass ashtray before draining his glass. "Look, Hannibal, if I get any information about him, you'll be the first to know," he said solemnly. "But in the meantime, I need you to do whatever it is you need to do and get your ass back out there."

Hannibal stared back at him for a long moment, then took a long drink. As it burned down his throat, he lowered his eyes to the folders in his hand. In the midst of his failure - the worst of his career, by far - two men had sought him out to commit their lives into his hand. It was pretty amazing considering they'd come out of the woodwork before the last lot of trusting souls had even been granted a proper memorial service. Hannibal didn't know what to think of such blind dedication, especially when it flew in the face of the rumors he was sure had been circulating since his team was lost.

"You can catch a ride to Dak To within the hour, if you want," Westman prodded. "I took the liberty of checking up on that medic and that's where you'll find him."

Finally, Hannibal nodded and stood. The invitation to leave was fairly obvious and he saw no reason to overstay his welcome. He still wasn't sure he could look into the face of another man who would die on his command - not so soon. But he also knew how this worked. Soldiers died, other soldiers went on fighting. If he was going to remain a soldier, he would have to go on fighting along with them. And if they were so willing to put their lives into his hands after all the reasons he'd given them not to, then who was he to argue?


	27. Chapter Twenty-Six

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**

 **November 13, 1982**

"Raise that rifle," Hannibal warned, "and the next move you make will be through a long tunnel towards a very bright light."

The bleeding man, flat on his stomach with one hand over a shoulder wound and the other around the handle of his rifle, thought better of it as soon as he looked up and into the barrel of a .45.

"Who the hell are you?" he managed, clearly in pain.

Hannibal was not inclined to answer. Keeping the gun trained, he bent down and grabbed the man's uninjured arm, hauling him up. He ignored the cry of pain, jerking the rifle out of the man's hands as soon as he was on his feet.

"Move!" he ordered roughly.

They arrived in the center of the yard at almost the same time as Face and BA came dragging the other two out of the woods. Stripped of their weapons and bleeding from shoulder or leg wounds, they collapsed in the grass in a clump and waited for further instruction. Pete was watching from the porch with Tanny by his side, but Suzanne was missing. Where the hell had she gone? Hannibal wanted an answer to that, particularly since she still had his gun.

"Face, BA, why don't you two keep our new friends here company," he instructed. "They're going to need an ambulance."

"And the police," Face added. His statement of the obvious was not directed at Hannibal so much as the men on the ground, who would have fun trying to explain to the locals why they had decided to start shooting at civilians in their own home.

Hannibal left them to think about it as he headed through the yard and up the porch steps. "Pete?" he asked with some concern, looking at the still-bleeding wound. "How you holding up?"

Pete nodded, leaning against the white post and supported on the other side by Tanny. She'd grabbed a clean towel to replace the shirt that had been drenched through with blood. It was all the answer Hannibal really needed.

"The ambulance is on its way," Tanny said tightly. "And Suzanne is on the phone upstairs. The one in the kitchen doesn't work."

"You're okay?" Hannibal checked, with genuine concern.

Tanny nodded, and gave a nervous smile. "The kids slept right through it. Thank you. I…" She swallowed hard. "I think we probably owe you our lives."

Hannibal simply nodded, not inclined to explain to her that these men probably never would've shown up here if they hadn't been looking for Hannibal and his hostage. At least, that was the only logical explanation Hannibal could come up with for how this had happened. If Pete and Tanny had been killed in the crossfire, they would've simply been collateral damage. As they'd predicted, the kill order on Hannibal had been issued just as soon as Agent Suzy had failed to bring him in quietly.

Hannibal clapped Pete's unhurt shoulder as he passed, hoping the ambulance would hurry. But Pete was in good hands until they arrived, and alert enough that he wasn't likely to suddenly pass out. Hannibal had other things to worry about, like retrieving his gun and getting the hell out of here before the police showed up.

"Put me through to him!" Suzanne's voice echoed down the steps. Although she sounded impressively professional, he could hear the adrenaline and excitement as he trudged up the steps. He poked his head into the boys' room to confirm that yes, they were still sleeping - oh, to have sleep like that! - before moving to the door of the main bedroom.

"Listen to me," Suzanne growled into the phone. Her tone rang with authority, low and even. "This line is unsecure, and you _don't_ have the clearance for this. Code 12 Alpha Gamma. Now put me through!"

There was no denying power behind that demand; she expected her order to be followed. Hannibal smiled to himself as he leaned in the doorframe. Not bad for someone who was still in the over sized t-shirt and boxers she had borrowed to sleep in. Crossing his arms loosely over his chest, his eyes raked her slowly - head to toe. Frazzled and unkempt, she still held his gun in one hand, the phone in the other, back ramrod straight as she stared at the wall and waited for whoever was on the other end to comply.

"Davis 177," she greeted with tension as she finally got her anticipated response. "We have a situation in Lake Orion, Michigan and we need a cleanup crew sent to the local hospital to collect them."

She paused, giving the person on the other end a chance to speak. "No, I'm fine," she said firmly. Therewas a subtle change in her demeanor when she spoke again, jaw set with grim satisfaction. "But you may want to have a chat with section chief Ekhart about this fiasco. I'm sure he'll be able to clear it up for you."

Her hand gripped his gun a little tighter when she said the name. She'd caught her prey, achieved her goal. Whether or not it would mean anything in the long term, she had done her part. By the time she hung up the phone, hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline, she was wearing a huge smile. Spinning toward the door, she pulled up short after only a half step as she saw him watching, but the smile held.

"I hope you have those details all worked out for the local police," Hannibal warned. "They're going to be very interested in hearing what happened here."

"I can handle the locals," she answered with confidence. And then, using him as a practice run, she explained, "What we have here are four suspected terrorist who will refuse to answer any questions - and they will, I can promise you that. They will be taken into custody by the feds, never to be heard from again."

"Four terrorists which you singlehandedly apprehended, no doubt," he suggested, though it was less of a suggestion than an order.

She gave an elegant shrug. "I see no need to mention your involvement," she agreed. She paused, and corrected. "But my superiors will get the real facts. _All_ of them."

Taking a step closer to her, he nudged the bedroom door closed with his foot but didn't latch it. She watched him, not flinching, not backing away as he stepped even closer. Well and truly crossing the boundary into her personal space, he closed a hand over hers, around his pistol.

"I'm going to need this back, Suzy," he said with a smile.

If she even noticed the use of her name, she said nothing. With his hand closed over hers, she wasn't holding any tighter to the weapon, but she didn't let go either. Overflow adrenaline permeated the entire room as she stared straight at him, holding her ground and still smiling. It was a look unlike any he'd seen thus far - challenge, adrenaline, success - and it suited her.

"It's a nice gun," she said with a smirk.

Raising a brow, he held her bold gaze and kept his hand steady, over hers and over the gun. He could feel it in her - the drive, the tension, all raging just under the surface with nowhere to go. It was like a drug to her, and she was more than a little tipsy on it. Very slowly, he moved his thumb to the inside of her wrist, stroking lightly, watching her in silence with a slight, knowing smile on his lips.

He knew what she felt - the confidence and the control, the sense that she'd won her battle against the world, against the powers of right and wrong, against him. He'd experienced that kind of success and he knew how powerfully intense - and addicting - it could be. As his thumb pressed to her pulse point, his hand moved up slowly - wrist to forearm, letting her keep the gun, waiting for her move. He knew she'd make the move. The adrenaline wouldn't allow her to _not_ make it.

He was right. Confident and bold, she moved in, pressing her body tight against his. Her free hand ran up his chest to his neck, then behind his head as she slid languidly closer to him. When her lips were a hair's breadth away from his neck, she finally whispered to him, low and seductive, "Is that gun _all_ you want?"

She was more than sure of herself and of what his reaction would be. Another side effect of the jazz - it filled her with a confidence beyond reason. He smiled to himself as he left the pistol in her grip, moving his hands to her hips and then down to the edge of the T-shirt that hung halfway down her thighs. This was a game she had played before, and had most likely always won. But this time was different. This time, she could feel it in a way she never had.

He turned slowly, guiding her until the back of her legs hit the bed frame. It was a short, quick move to push her onto the bed, and she dug sharp nails into his shoulders, pulling him down with her. By the time they landed, their mouths were joined and her leg was wrapped around his to hold him in place. Combined with the hand on his neck it gave her the leverage she needed for what he knew she was planning next. Even with the gun in her other hand she was able to shift her hips and move her body, rolling him on to his back.

He smirked. Clearly, this was not her first time. But it wasn't his, either.

Step one involved changing the rules of her game. When she flipped him to his back, Hannibal didn't let her stop there. Instead, he rolled with her, moving his hand behind her back to catch her weight as they hit the floor with a loud thud. Although startled, she didn't seem to mind. Just the opposite in fact, judging by the way he could feel her heart pounding and her breath catch. She kissed him with more intensity as her free hand slid under his T-shirt and raked across his stomach.

Step two, neutralize. The shaky table next to the bed toppled over as they hit it, and his eyes flickered just briefly to the lamp that was now on the floor. Perfect. Engaging her in another deep kiss, he rolled with her until he could grab the cord, then back again, looping it in a knot that could be quickly tightened. Hannibal smiled into the kiss. His mind was on the cord, her mind was very clearly elsewhere as she thrust her hips against him.

Finally, they hit the edge of the bed again. He pulled the gun out of her hand and then, in a flash, had her wrists pinned to the floor on either side of the corner post. It wasn't hard to get them through the loop in the cord, and it only took a second to pull it tight, effectively trapping her. As he wrapped the cord around her wrists a few more times just for good measure, his eyes locked on hers. He smiled knowingly at the startled, confused look in her eyes.

"You do like that push and pull, don't you?" he breathed, teasing her.

It wasn't really a question. The adrenaline and excitement had gotten the better of her. She was lost in the feeling and in no position to stop what she had started. Resigning with some reluctance to her submissive position, but still entirely overcome by the need to vent all her pent-up energy, she gave a low moan, arching up to him as he leaned down and put his lips to her ear.

Dropping his voice to a low, seductive whisper, he smiled again, finishing off the knot. "Do you like it when I've got you flat on your back and wanting me?"

She didn't answer him with words, but her legs lifted and locked around his waist and her teeth scraped his neck. He was still smiling as he withdrew from her. Carefully moving his hands down her sides, he guided her legs back down to the floor, then watched her flickering eyes as he slid callused hands slowly back up over the smooth skin of her thighs again. He grinned at the way her breath caught, and scent of her as his fingers hooked around the waistband of her shorts and drew both them and her panties all the way down her legs.

"I almost feel sorry for you, Suzy," he admitted. The quiet words filled the heavy air in the room as he left her shorts on the floor and tucked her panties into his pocket - an appropriate trophy to remind him of the fun he'd had with her. Never breaking eye contact, he set warm hands on her calves, holding her legs together as he stroked a thumb across her overheated skin. "You want so badly to win. And you just can't accept that sometimes, you're destined to lose."

He gave himself a moment to simply enjoy the sight of her wanting him so much she was shaking with the intensity of it. The confusion came only a moment later, as the words processed. "What?" she managed breathlessly.

"It's been fun, Suzy," he said casually, eager to see what she thought of step three in his lesson plan. "But I have to get back to LA. And you have to get back to your work. Unless, of course, this is part of your mission objective."

He wasn't disappointed by her reaction. It took her a few seconds to work thought the haze of emotion and excitement and figure out what was going on. He knew the second she figured it out. The intensity in her eyes was suddenly burning bright with fury.

"You son of a bitch!"

She was so mad, she forgot her hands were neatly and securely tied to the leg of the bed. Struggling fiercely, she tried to yank her arms to get to him. When that didn't work, she switched her focus to kicking at him. But he backed away long before she had a chance.

Furious and indignant she growled up at him from the floor. "You are going to pay for this you… you..." She couldn't seem to find something bad enough to describe him.

"Try not to take it too hard Suzy," he grinned as he stood up, picking up his pistol from off the floor and tucking it into the back of his pants. "Think of this as a life lesson in _quip pro quo_."

"What!" she snarled furiously.

Standing over her, he shrugged casually. "You tied me naked to a bed and left me to be picked up by law enforcement. I'm returning the favor. But in the interest of common decency, I'll let you keep your clothes." He smirked. "Most of them."

"God damn you!"

He chuckled and as she twisted, kicking out with her leg, trying to sweep his feet from under him; she was about six inches too short to pull that move off, but she gave it her best effort.

"Aww, come on Suzy," he teased. "You should thank me for giving you the opportunity to learn new things."

"Fuck you!"

He shrugged. She didn't seem to appreciate his teaching style. That really was too bad. He raised an eyebrow in amusement as her furious movements slid the hem of the T-shirt to the tops of her thighs. The woman really did have incredible legs. Not surprisingly, his enjoyment and her exposure just seemed to feed her anger.

"Don't you even _think_ about leaving me here like this, you bastard!" she yelled.

Flat on her back, tied, wearing only an oversized t-shirt, she was making a demand. Hannibal laughed out loud. He couldn't help it; she was funny as hell.

"I mean it Smith," she warned with a hiss.

"Here." He withdrew his pocket knife and tossed it in her general direction. "Just to make things fair."

He'd let her struggle with exactly how to reach it and use it. She was pretty flexible, and creative. She'd find a way. Might take her a while, but she'd manage it. Maybe she'd even manage it before someone came looking for her.

"I'll leave your guns on the kitchen table." He paused at the doorway and smiled at her. "You've been fun, Suzy. I wish you luck".

She growled. "You are going to pay for this Smith."

He smiled. It was impossible to be threatening in her position, reaching for the knife with her toes. Turning away with a quiet chuckle, he left the room and closed the door behind him. His smile grew as he heard her muffled voice calling down the hall.

"Hannibal! You filthy rotten god damned son of a bitching bastard!"

With her colorful use of swear words and her ability to tie knots, she really would have made a damn fine sailor. Smiling to himself, Hannibal headed for his team as he heard sirens in the distance. He really hoped that under the circumstances, Pete wouldn't mind lending his car.


	28. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

 **May 4, 1968**

Leaning against the wall of the TOC, Face watched as the helicopter set down and a group of men raced to greet the returning recon team. The One-Zeroes greeted them with smiles and beer and congratulations - they were all still alive. Face dragged deeply on his cigarette, eyes dark and face expressionless as he watched from a distance. He'd been nearly two months in SOG now, and whether or not it was all he'd hoped it would be, he really couldn't tell. It didn't really feel much like the place of loyalty and belonging he'd heard about. But maybe that was just because of him. Everyone else on his team seemed to feel it - even towards him. More often than not, though, he found himself pouring effort into making himself appear to be more connected, more caring, and more appreciative of their concern than he really was. He was still alone, and he had simply resigned himself to the fact that he always would be.

He was good at what he did. In fact, he'd worked up quite a reputation for himself, and an impressive number of drops without any injuries of his own to speak of. That was due as much to luck as to skill, but he was credited with both. The word around SOG was that Templeton Peck was the lucky bastard with a good sense of direction and a determination made of hard steel. Don't tell him what he couldn't do.

The young colonel was out in front of the team moving away from the chopper - smiling, laughing... There was blood spattered all over the front of his sterile, unmarked BDUs. Face wondered whose it was. Enemies didn't traditionally come in quite so close. Friends didn't bleed like that. They left pools where they fell and oozed onto the men dragging their lifeless bodies back to choppers.

"You know who that is?" the unexpected voice beside him asked.

He glanced briefly at Shorty, and dragged again on his cigarette. "By reputation," he answered flatly, returning his gaze to Smith as the man was escorted by the crowd into the makeshift NCO club.

"Heh. Which one?" Shorty asked with a smirk. "I can't think of any guy I've met since I got here who hadn't heard of him. 'Bout half are terrified of him and the other half are too stupid to know better."

Face didn't respond. Still watching the legendary team, he took another deep drag. Smith must have sensed the stare. He looked up, and his eyes found Face's as if he knew exactly where to look. Face didn't look away.

"You ever talked to him?" Shorty asked.

A few steps further, Smith was distracted by the man on his right. He smiled, quickly losing interest in Face's lingering gaze. "No," Face deadpanned.

"Maybe you should," Shorty invited lightly. "Rumor has it he's putting together a new team. These drops he's been doing lately are some kind of fucked up interview process, if you can believe it. C'mon, I'll introduce you."

Another drag. Face shook his head. "Thanks, but no."

Shorty laughed. "You're not afraid of him too, are you?" he goaded, sure that would get Face to engage.

But Face just glanced sideways at the 5'1 sergeant standing beside him, and gave a self-assured smirk. It was enough to make Shorty laugh and shake his head. "Your loss," he rescinded, heading off to join in the festivities.

Face let his smile fall as Shorty walked away. Gradually, his eyes lowered to the ground, and he finished his cigarette in silence before dropping it to the dirt and grinding it out with the toe of his boot. Then he waited. Standing still, watching and listening, he waited for what felt like hours.

The plan, such as it was, had been to wait until Smith was good and drunk. But when the colonel finally emerged from the ramshackle building, he still looked perfectly capable of walking a straight line. Standing in the recessed shadows and planning his words for the thousandth time, Face drew in a long, slow breath before calling out.

"Hey, Colonel?"

Hannibal stopped, turned, and smirked as Face stepped forward into the fading, evening light. "Finally worked up the nerve to introduce yourself?" he taunted.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Face ignored the bait. Of course Hannibal knew he'd been watching. They'd locked gazes for long enough to make it pretty obvious. "I have a question for you," he said seriously.

Hannibal glanced over his shoulder at the tent he and his team had claimed. "Make it quick," he invited, clearly on a mission.

"I know you had to lie on paper," Face continued. "To the family, to everyone. But I want to know the truth about something. About someone."

Hannibal hesitated, taken aback by the forwardness. Finally, he turned his full attention to Face and studied him with intense curiosity through the darkness. "Alright," he agreed soberly.

Drawing in a deep breath, Face steeled himself before finally demanding, "Where did Sergeant Devon Young die?"

Hannibal didn't flinch at the question. But he did take a long, tense moment to reply. "Devon Young isn't dead," he finally said.

Face blinked in surprise at the unexpected answer. It took him several long seconds to even manage a simple, "What?"

"He's still out there somewhere," Hannibal said again.

Shaking his head in confusion, Face stammered through his reply as shock and relief washed over him in equal amounts. "I... I heard he died," he struggled. "It must have been a miscommunication somewhere. Do you know where he's -"

"No, you're not hearing me, kid," Hannibal interrupted. "He's out there." Hannibal nodded in the direction of the dark tree line, and gave the words a few seconds to sink in.

The reality hit Face like a ton of bricks. "You mean he was taken," he realized.

"In Cambodia," Hannibal answered seriously. "About twenty miles inside the border from Duc Lap. As far as I'm concerned, he's not dead until I see a body. But he'd probably be better off if he were."

Mouth dry, Face nodded his understanding and managed a quiet, "Thank you," before Smith turned and walked away. But he only made it a few paces before Face called out again. "Are you gonna go after him?"

It wasn't really a question so much as an accusation, and it stopped Smith dead in his tracks.

"It's what you do, isn't it?" Face continued. "Those impossible assignments with no chance of success?"

Standing very still for a moment longer, Hannibal finally looked back over his shoulder and gave a soft, sympathetic smile. "Not without orders, kid," he said apologetically.

Face swallowed again, but this time he found no words as Hannibal turned and continued on his way.


End file.
